What do Tory MPs think about this? – politicalbetting.com
Comments
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I don't anticipate spending much, if any, time next week with Conservative voters!rottenborough said:
I admire your sense of hope @Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales said:The drip drip of conservative mps sending in letters will hopefully gain momentum over this holiday period triggering the 54 needed on their return as they mix at various jubilee parties and find out how toxic Boris is
The irony that jubilee parties could see his denouement
I just can't see it happening now.
Sadly, because there are some I'd like to be with, and I can't!0 -
Wasn't this chap was it? Used to have a copy of his book.turbotubbs said:
‘Twas also the subject of a slightly eccentric scientist who decided flamingoes were pink as camouflage at sunset and sunrise. No idea what they did for the rest of the day, mind.Carnyx said:
Pink works surprisingly well in the halflight of dawn in certain environments - hence the RAF reconnaissance Spitfires, and the SAS Land-Rovers. And the Royal Navy ships painted in Mountbatten Pink - or 'Nipple Pink' to the USN.boulay said:
Ah, the famously badly camouflaged Russian Tank.IshmaelZ said:
Argentinian pink. T -24.Carnyx said:
Obvs the grumpiness has spread from PB this afternoon.CarlottaVance said:YouGov poll on the horizon:
Looks like these tweets have been taken down for breaking an embargo, but I got a screenshot so will just post them here.
Why? Because if you deliberately try to line your poll up to release at the same time as ours to spike us, I will be petty.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1530220695313166337
*checks clock and remembers there is some NZ white in the fridge*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountbatten_pink
https://www.shipcamouflage.com/4_7.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Coloration_in_Animals
I wonder if the logic is that the birds are too visible during the day anyway in their environment that it doesn't matter what colour they are, plus they can see predators coming a mile off. It's the crepuscular lighting at dusk and dawn is the time of maximum danger.0 -
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can certainly also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
3 -
Ishmael has Derangement Syndrome Derangement Syndrome.Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can certainly also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing3 -
Listening to the press conference from the school just now, hearing the account by the police of their utter incompetence flanked by a group of all men in their cowboy hats (no women anywhere) the utter contempt by the press for each and everyone of them was palpableFarooq said:Time for America to ban AR15s. Completely.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mikejason73/status/1529992509920890884
When you see the state of the US today you can only be grateful we live in a country where we are not allowed to own firearms2 -
Oh, get a room, you two. Two anonymous posters ticking each other off (? Perhaps you really are Blanche and Nigel?) gets old very quickly, especially when they cartry it on from thread to thread.BlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.7 -
I've given him my room key, but he doesn't want to be in the same room as someone who voted for Brexit.NickPalmer said:
Oh, get a room, you two. Two anonymous posters ticking each other off (? Perhaps you really are Blanche and Nigel?) gets old very quickly, especially when they cartry it on from thread to thread.BlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.1 -
Didn't they prove it was genetic?Farooq said:
Remember how Ed Miliband was described as "Stalinist" by the Daily Mail?Farooq said:
Yeah except no. We could just as easily talk about Marxist derangement syndrome. You know, how teaching children that colonial history wasn't heroic.. MARXISM! and how wanting to prevent runaway climate change.. MARXISM! and allowing not to be the unwilling vessels for a child they don't want.. MARXISM!Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can definitely also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
The right is just as mad as the left.
0 -
This pantomime with the letters feels like it's been going on since about 1872, and to what effect?Big_G_NorthWales said:
I canrottenborough said:
I admire your sense of hope @Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales said:The drip drip of conservative mps sending in letters will hopefully gain momentum over this holiday period triggering the 54 needed on their return as they mix at various jubilee parties and find out how toxic Boris is
The irony that jubilee parties could see his denouement
I just can't see it happening now.
The mythical number will likely never be reached, and if it is the vast majority of them will vote to keep Johnson anyway. A fitting tribute to the near total lack of talent offered by the Parliamentary Conservative Party.0 -
Not to alarm @Leon or anything, but we seem to be getting more virulent again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1529965612956405761
BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 characterized in human lung cells and an experimental model by @SystemsVirology
—All 3 Omicron subvariants have enhanced replication in lung cells compared w/ BA.2
—BA.4/5 is more pathogenic than BA.2 in animal model
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.26.493539v10 -
Indeed. Only yesterday the Telegraph was hyperventilating about a Hard Left Alliance. Containing, er, Ed Davey's Lib Dems.Farooq said:
Remember how Ed Miliband was described as "Stalinist" by the Daily Mail?Farooq said:
Yeah except no. We could just as easily talk about Marxist derangement syndrome. You know, how teaching children that colonial history wasn't heroic.. MARXISM! and how wanting to prevent runaway climate change.. MARXISM! and allowing not to be the unwilling vessels for a child they don't want.. MARXISM!Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can definitely also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
The right is just as mad as the left.
As for Ed M. The Tories have implemented his policies and then some.5 -
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.4 -
Paging bag lady....Nigelb said:Not to alarm @Leon or anything, but we seem to be getting more virulent again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1529965612956405761
BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 characterized in human lung cells and an experimental model by @SystemsVirology
—All 3 Omicron subvariants have enhanced replication in lung cells compared w/ BA.2
—BA.4/5 is more pathogenic than BA.2 in animal model
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.26.493539v12 -
Don't.FrancisUrquhart said:
Paging bag lady....Nigelb said:Not to alarm @Leon or anything, but we seem to be getting more virulent again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1529965612956405761
BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 characterized in human lung cells and an experimental model by @SystemsVirology
—All 3 Omicron subvariants have enhanced replication in lung cells compared w/ BA.2
—BA.4/5 is more pathogenic than BA.2 in animal model
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.26.493539v1
She might double bag..0 -
No, we should be glad we live in a country without Americans. Most Swiss households have a gun, but they don't go around murdering children.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Listening to the press conference from the school just now, hearing the account by the police of their utter incompetence flanked by a group of all men in their cowboy hats (no women anywhere) the utter contempt by the press for each and everyone of them was palpableFarooq said:Time for America to ban AR15s. Completely.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mikejason73/status/1529992509920890884
When you see the state of the US today you can only be grateful we live in a country where we are not allowed to own firearms1 -
no ammoFenman said:
No, we should be glad we live in a country without Americans. Most Swiss households have a gun, but they don't go around murdering children.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Listening to the press conference from the school just now, hearing the account by the police of their utter incompetence flanked by a group of all men in their cowboy hats (no women anywhere) the utter contempt by the press for each and everyone of them was palpableFarooq said:Time for America to ban AR15s. Completely.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mikejason73/status/1529992509920890884
When you see the state of the US today you can only be grateful we live in a country where we are not allowed to own firearms1 -
Thought it was quite interesting that preveraence of covid in uk is the same as start of last December.0
-
Thought experiment.Nigelb said:You can see where this is heading...
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/1529930193481220110
The governor of Oklahoma, who just signed a bill banning abortion, period, is being primaried by another Republican who says life begins *before* conception. Yes, you read that right.
Imagine it's a school history lesson in (say) the year 2122.
At what point does the precocious, bright but boulshy child stick their hand up and say "Come on Sir, that's obviously stupid. Were they all idiots in the 21st Century?"0 -
Heck of a lot of guns in Canada too.Fenman said:
No, we should be glad we live in a country without Americans. Most Swiss households have a gun, but they don't go around murdering children.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Listening to the press conference from the school just now, hearing the account by the police of their utter incompetence flanked by a group of all men in their cowboy hats (no women anywhere) the utter contempt by the press for each and everyone of them was palpableFarooq said:Time for America to ban AR15s. Completely.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mikejason73/status/1529992509920890884
When you see the state of the US today you can only be grateful we live in a country where we are not allowed to own firearms0 -
I do wonder what the bloke who was photographied walking through the centre of bath in a full hazmat suit is doing these days.Farooq said:
"Single survivor from bus trip tells of home-made live-saving invention"FrancisUrquhart said:
Paging bag lady....Nigelb said:Not to alarm @Leon or anything, but we seem to be getting more virulent again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1529965612956405761
BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 characterized in human lung cells and an experimental model by @SystemsVirology
—All 3 Omicron subvariants have enhanced replication in lung cells compared w/ BA.2
—BA.4/5 is more pathogenic than BA.2 in animal model
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.26.493539v1
..even though there was audible sniggering from my fellow passengers. I even caught one of them taking a photo of me. But they're all dead now.1 -
I think most people reached the point where they are either happy with the lying spendthrift or not. More lying and spending may change the intensity of support, but not the direction.0
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Tom red t-shirt Scott had a good video about a gun range in Switzerland where your fire over a main road to targets in the hill side. Due to the shape of land if you lie down you can't hit the cars, but the fact they trust people to behave responsibility.Fenman said:
No, we should be glad we live in a country without Americans. Most Swiss households have a gun, but they don't go around murdering children.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Listening to the press conference from the school just now, hearing the account by the police of their utter incompetence flanked by a group of all men in their cowboy hats (no women anywhere) the utter contempt by the press for each and everyone of them was palpableFarooq said:Time for America to ban AR15s. Completely.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mikejason73/status/1529992509920890884
When you see the state of the US today you can only be grateful we live in a country where we are not allowed to own firearms0 -
Woke Derangement Syndrome is a thing too, I reckon. It can be found on here.Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can certainly also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing7 -
Jos Buttler single handedly winning the IPL semi-final. If only the likes of him.and Livingstone could play proper cricket.2
-
T plus 19, systems nominal. this rose is a bit syrupy tho (Malbec).0
-
Positive thought for the long bank holiday.....i will be working throughout, so no danger for me.
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/omicron-variant-why-reinfections-of-uks-dominant-covid-strain-are-set-to-rise-after-six-month-lull-16521350 -
We might smile but Trump Republican's and Johnsonian Tories have both grasped that what people believe is far more important than the truth. Hence Trump's "Truth" social media project. Sadly, they are not wrong which is why both groups now poll far better amongst the less educated than has been the case during my lifetime.dixiedean said:
Indeed. Only yesterday the Telegraph was hyperventilating about a Hard Left Alliance. Containing, er, Ed Davey's Lib Dems.Farooq said:
Remember how Ed Miliband was described as "Stalinist" by the Daily Mail?Farooq said:
Yeah except no. We could just as easily talk about Marxist derangement syndrome. You know, how teaching children that colonial history wasn't heroic.. MARXISM! and how wanting to prevent runaway climate change.. MARXISM! and allowing not to be the unwilling vessels for a child they don't want.. MARXISM!Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can definitely also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
The right is just as mad as the left.
As for Ed M. The Tories have implemented his policies and then some.3 -
It's wonderful entertainment though.FrancisUrquhart said:Jos Buttler single handedly winning the IPL semi-final. If only the likes of him.and Livingstone could play proper cricket.
And you know something I love about the IPL? In-between overs they don't see the need for ridiculous music, fire shows and dancing girls. The fans love the cricket.
I can live with T20 when it's done IPL style.1 -
Read earlier on twitter that the Mail has a story saying that Keir and 'Angie' are unlikely to get FPNs, due to the Cummings precedent. Doesn't look like they've even got questionnaires..
@PippaCrerar
Understand that Keir Starmer and Angie Rayner have not yet received questionnaires from Durham Police, despite some reports. #beergate
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/15302387259548794910 -
Currently in the U.K. it’s the dog that didn’t bark. Rising proportion of cases certainly, but not uptick in hospitalisation, which are still gratifyingly falling (under 500 a day in England now). It’s been noted that the places with big waves of 4/5 did not see much 2, whereas we did. Hard to predict the future, but my sense is there will be a bump, but not a big one.Nigelb said:Not to alarm @Leon or anything, but we seem to be getting more virulent again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1529965612956405761
BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 characterized in human lung cells and an experimental model by @SystemsVirology
—All 3 Omicron subvariants have enhanced replication in lung cells compared w/ BA.2
—BA.4/5 is more pathogenic than BA.2 in animal model
https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.26.493539v10 -
Well I am beginning to think we are indeed heading for a VONC1
-
Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
0 -
The way America is going it's more likely the school history lesson would be describing how people coexisted with dinosaurs.Stuartinromford said:
Thought experiment.Nigelb said:You can see where this is heading...
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/1529930193481220110
The governor of Oklahoma, who just signed a bill banning abortion, period, is being primaried by another Republican who says life begins *before* conception. Yes, you read that right.
Imagine it's a school history lesson in (say) the year 2122.
At what point does the precocious, bright but boulshy child stick their hand up and say "Come on Sir, that's obviously stupid. Were they all idiots in the 21st Century?"0 -
I genuinely believe we are nearer now than we have ever beenHeathener said:Well I am beginning to think we are indeed heading for a VONC
0 -
Corbynism in action....Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.0 -
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.0 -
The Heil will become very excited about police incompetence. In Durham, not London!BlancheLivermore said:Read earlier on twitter that the Mail has a story saying that Keir and 'Angie' are unlikely to get FPNs, due to the Cummings precedent. Doesn't look like they've even got questionnaires..
@PippaCrerar
Understand that Keir Starmer and Angie Rayner have not yet received questionnaires from Durham Police, despite some reports. #beergate
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/15302387259548794910 -
Covid derangement syndrome, the other variant where people imagine the nasty virus has been conquered so we can burn our masks, make fun of Greek ladies on buses, and party like it'sFrancisUrquhart said:Positive thought for the long bank holiday.....i will be working throughout, so no danger for me.
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/omicron-variant-why-reinfections-of-uks-dominant-covid-strain-are-set-to-rise-after-six-month-lull-165213519992020 in Downing Street.0 -
Yes.OllyT said:
We might smile but Trump Republican's and Johnsonian Tories have both grasped that what people believe is far more important than the truth. Hence Trump's "Truth" social media project. Sadly, they are not wrong which is why both groups now poll far better amongst the less educated than has been the case during my lifetime.dixiedean said:
Indeed. Only yesterday the Telegraph was hyperventilating about a Hard Left Alliance. Containing, er, Ed Davey's Lib Dems.Farooq said:
Remember how Ed Miliband was described as "Stalinist" by the Daily Mail?Farooq said:
Yeah except no. We could just as easily talk about Marxist derangement syndrome. You know, how teaching children that colonial history wasn't heroic.. MARXISM! and how wanting to prevent runaway climate change.. MARXISM! and allowing not to be the unwilling vessels for a child they don't want.. MARXISM!Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can definitely also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
The right is just as mad as the left.
As for Ed M. The Tories have implemented his policies and then some.
Although it is interesting to note that every form of new mass media has followed the same pattern.
Wild assertions and manipulations cause unrest until society figures out how to use it properly.
The Civil War was stoked by propaganda spread by pamphleteering.
I'm of the view it works great right up until the moment it doesn't. See climate change as a cultural cleavage in last week's Australian election.
My kids simply automatically disbelieve anything they read on the Internet as their default setting.0 -
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).0 -
The danger for Starmer has only ever been that the plod might go for the politicial fudge of saying that could be considered a minor breach of subsection 28 paragraoh 4 if the regulations. At time would have advised individuals of this and asked for adherence to the rules and no more. Thus it can be claimed he isn't totally innocent.0
-
We always are nearer to a VONC than ever but what we forget is that when Graham Brady counts to the magic 50-odd, he then telephones each writer to ask if they really mean it.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I genuinely believe we are nearer now than we have ever beenHeathener said:Well I am beginning to think we are indeed heading for a VONC
0 -
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad.0 -
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.0 -
But (on topic) Mr Johnson hasn't even broken the new Ministerial Code now, so why would MPs want to get rid of him? I am also convinced Starmer and Rayner will get their FPNs shortly as I am hopeful Durham Constabulary will be substantially more rigorous than the Met.which should also bolster confidence in Mr Johnson.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I canrottenborough said:
I admire your sense of hope @Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales said:The drip drip of conservative mps sending in letters will hopefully gain momentum over this holiday period triggering the 54 needed on their return as they mix at various jubilee parties and find out how toxic Boris is
The irony that jubilee parties could see his denouement
I just can't see it happening now.0 -
Because we have a good line in the same?BlancheLivermore said:
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad.1 -
OTOH increasing the tax take from these properties by 300% could be argued to be a form of compensation for their sitting empty for most of the year. Those houses contribute very little to the local economy when uninhabited.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
Besides which, Mr Drakeford is hardly going to worry about losing the support of a handful of holiday let owners in Conwy now is he? They're not exactly part of his natural constituency to begin with.0 -
No, that was quite funny, I’m afraid. A clever parody of the German compound nounNigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I would agree. Obvs I don’t suffer from it, I am cleverly wise and neutral observerNorthern_Al said:
Woke Derangement Syndrome is a thing too, I reckon. It can be found on here.Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can certainly also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing1 -
I suspect those who are likely to lose out were already voting Conservative. Don't forget Boris Johnson's view is also one of " if you don't vote for us, we don't care about you".Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.1 -
You know that that is not the case in the court of public opinion and his mps are about to find a torrent of criticism over this holiday period with a real threat to their futuresMexicanpete said:
But (on topic) Mr Johnson hasn't even broken the new Ministerial Code now, so why would MPs want to get rid of him? I am also convinced Starmer and Rayner will get their FPNs shortly as I am hopeful Durham Constabulary will be substantially more rigorous than the Met.which should also bolster confidence in Mr Johnson.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I canrottenborough said:
I admire your sense of hope @Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales said:The drip drip of conservative mps sending in letters will hopefully gain momentum over this holiday period triggering the 54 needed on their return as they mix at various jubilee parties and find out how toxic Boris is
The irony that jubilee parties could see his denouement
I just can't see it happening now.
I expect the 54 to be reached by mid June
As far as Starmer and Rayner ae concerned I have said previously I expect them to be exonerated if they can prove they were working, not least as that seems to be the reason Boris was excused1 -
The questionnaire is a strange new Met innovation to avoid actually having to interview anyone, it seems to me. No reason why it should have been adopted in more progressive areas.OldKingCole said:
The Heil will become very excited about police incompetence. In Durham, not London!BlancheLivermore said:Read earlier on twitter that the Mail has a story saying that Keir and 'Angie' are unlikely to get FPNs, due to the Cummings precedent. Doesn't look like they've even got questionnaires..
@PippaCrerar
Understand that Keir Starmer and Angie Rayner have not yet received questionnaires from Durham Police, despite some reports. #beergate
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/15302387259548794912 -
Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
She was wearing a clear plastic bag over her entire headDecrepiterJohnL said:
Covid derangement syndrome, the other variant where people imagine the nasty virus has been conquered so we can burn our masks, make fun of Greek ladies on buses, and party like it'sFrancisUrquhart said:Positive thought for the long bank holiday.....i will be working throughout, so no danger for me.
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/omicron-variant-why-reinfections-of-uks-dominant-covid-strain-are-set-to-rise-after-six-month-lull-165213519992020 in Downing Street.1 -
I suppose our arming Saudi is in a neighbouring ballpark, playing the ladies' version of the sport. It's bad, but it's hardly the same as keeping the rouble afloat while Russia rapes and ravages.Unpopular said:
Because we have a good line in the same?BlancheLivermore said:
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad.0 -
Any excuse for pics of Ms Welch in a fur bikini.OnlyLivingBoy said:
The way America is going it's more likely the school history lesson would be describing how people coexisted with dinosaurs.Stuartinromford said:
Thought experiment.Nigelb said:You can see where this is heading...
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/1529930193481220110
The governor of Oklahoma, who just signed a bill banning abortion, period, is being primaried by another Republican who says life begins *before* conception. Yes, you read that right.
Imagine it's a school history lesson in (say) the year 2122.
At what point does the precocious, bright but boulshy child stick their hand up and say "Come on Sir, that's obviously stupid. Were they all idiots in the 21st Century?"3 -
In what way is Co Durham "progressive"?Carnyx said:
The questionnaire is a strange new Met innovation to avoid actually having to interview anyone, it seems to me. No reason why it should have been adopted in more progressive areas.OldKingCole said:
The Heil will become very excited about police incompetence. In Durham, not London!BlancheLivermore said:Read earlier on twitter that the Mail has a story saying that Keir and 'Angie' are unlikely to get FPNs, due to the Cummings precedent. Doesn't look like they've even got questionnaires..
@PippaCrerar
Understand that Keir Starmer and Angie Rayner have not yet received questionnaires from Durham Police, despite some reports. #beergate
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/15302387259548794910 -
That would mean that Mr Drakeford is right. Which is obviously an uncomputable statement for some.Farooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.1 -
I did say "more": It's all relative.JohnLilburne said:
In what way is Co Durham "progressive"?Carnyx said:
The questionnaire is a strange new Met innovation to avoid actually having to interview anyone, it seems to me. No reason why it should have been adopted in more progressive areas.OldKingCole said:
The Heil will become very excited about police incompetence. In Durham, not London!BlancheLivermore said:Read earlier on twitter that the Mail has a story saying that Keir and 'Angie' are unlikely to get FPNs, due to the Cummings precedent. Doesn't look like they've even got questionnaires..
@PippaCrerar
Understand that Keir Starmer and Angie Rayner have not yet received questionnaires from Durham Police, despite some reports. #beergate
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/15302387259548794910 -
You do not understand the holiday industry across North Wales is under attack from Cardiff and it is a huge contributor to our economy, jobs and local businessespigeon said:
OTOH increasing the tax take from these properties by 300% could be argued to be a form of compensation for their sitting empty for most of the year. Those houses contribute very little to the local economy when uninhabited.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
Besides which, Mr Drakeford is hardly going to worry about losing the support of a handful of holiday let owners in Conwy now is he? They're not exactly part of his natural constituency to begin with.0 -
It is not a question of political voting intentionsMexicanpete said:
I suspect those who are likely to lose out were already voting Conservative. Don't forget Boris Johnson's view is also one of " if you don't vote for us, we don't care about you".Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
It is an attack on the holiday industry which supports thousands of jobs0 -
Well, quite. This is the consequence of deciding that your only foreign policy objective is short term business interests.BlancheLivermore said:
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad.
En passant, Oleksiy Arestovych, a slightly eccentric spokesman for the Ukrainian government, has purportedly declared that Germany, France and Italy would prefer a Russian victory as it would prevent the rise of a British-backed 'Warsaw-Kiev axis' that would be a threat to the current Franco-German axis that generally has called the shots in Europe of late.
So the Ukrainian government would not seem to be the biggest fan of Germany at the moment.1 -
I agree with a lot of that.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Though I would add that it's important not to overlook the other big historical event in recent German history - die Wende (the "turn" , as in turning point) which is what Germans call German reunification. It looms almost as large in Germans' historical consciousness as the years of national socialism. It's an example of peaceful change or revolution. And was followed by very chummy relations between Kohl and Yeltsin.
0 -
Slight confusion of terminology, I think - there are two different VONCs - a Commons vote of No Confidence in the government, and a party vote of No Confidence in the leader. I think the latter is technically a vote of confidence, perhaps?IshmaelZ said:0 -
Can anyone sane tell me whether to worry about omicron variants??Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I’m having a hoot doing an odyssey around the world. I don’t want covid FUCKING IT UP AGAIN0 -
70 days a year? That's just a scam for holiday home owners to avoid having to pay council tax, dammit. No wondfer they are howling at losing that cheat. The new change is obviously fair. And the businesses will just have to be more efficient in their usage of housing space, as a vital wider public benefit.Big_G_NorthWales said:
It is not a question of political voting intentionsMexicanpete said:
I suspect those who are likely to lose out were already voting Conservative. Don't forget Boris Johnson's view is also one of " if you don't vote for us, we don't care about you".Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
It is an attack on the holiday industry which supports thousands of jobs1 -
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.0 -
Don't worry about the variants.Leon said:
Can anyone sane tell me whether to worry about omicron variants??Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I’m having a hoot doing an odyssey around the world. I don’t want covid FUCKING IT UP AGAIN
Worry about the politicians' overreaction to them.1 -
Can't be long until we get OmiPox...combination of Omicron and MonkeyPox....Leon said:
Can anyone sane tell me whether to worry about omicron variants??Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I’m having a hoot doing an odyssey around the world. I don’t want covid FUCKING IT UP AGAIN0 -
Student calls to 911:
12:03—whispered she's in room 112
12:10—said multiple dead
12:13—called again
12:16—says 8-9 students alive
12:19—student calls from room 111
12:21—3 shots heard on call
12:36—another call
12:43—asks for police
12:47—asks for police
https://t.co/CzkuF1llq11 -
Nice reply to Rory from Salmond's Scotland..
Rory Stewart
@RoryStewartUK
The fact that it has had to be said repeatedly over so many incidents over so much time - does not change the fundamental truth:
Boris Johnson is manifestly unsuitable to be Prime- minister. Every day he remains further damages the country.
Speaking now on
@GMB @RestIsPolitics
The Crossgate Centre #SupportsAlexSalmond
@CrossgateCentre
Replying to
@RoryStewartUK
@GMB and @RestIsPolitics
Nah - shove your nice responsible young man calling Johnson out schtick. You're every bit as much a Tory shit as Johnson. You're also security services & a contemptible #VichyScot who is committed to keeping in place English political hegemony over Scotland.
https://twitter.com/CrossgateCentre/status/15298089034160291840 -
On topic, Johnson is a turd who needs to be firmly flushed away. It’s quite simple really.7
-
I much prefer your travel contributions. They are as sharp and as observant as your German ones are bland prejudiced and ignorant.BlancheLivermore said:
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad.0 -
Mm
3 -
Didn't realise @malcolmg was working that shift.BlancheLivermore said:Nice reply to Rory from Salmond's Scotland..
Rory Stewart
@RoryStewartUK
The fact that it has had to be said repeatedly over so many incidents over so much time - does not change the fundamental truth:
Boris Johnson is manifestly unsuitable to be Prime- minister. Every day he remains further damages the country.
Speaking now on
@GMB @RestIsPolitics
The Crossgate Centre #SupportsAlexSalmond
@CrossgateCentre
Replying to
@RoryStewartUK
@GMB and @RestIsPolitics
Nah - shove your nice responsible young man calling Johnson out schtick. You're every bit as much a Tory shit as Johnson. You're also security services & a contemptible #VichyScot who is committed to keeping in place English political hegemony over Scotland.
https://twitter.com/CrossgateCentre/status/15298089034160291843 -
Not right this minute. Have a beer.Leon said:
Can anyone sane tell me whether to worry about omicron variants??Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I’m having a hoot doing an odyssey around the world. I don’t want covid FUCKING IT UP AGAIN0 -
How much unfulfilled residential demand is out there in mid Wales? (How much tourist demand for that matter in February, even if "better-run"?)Farooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.0 -
But make sure you wear your plastic bag while doing so.Unpopular said:
Not right this minute. Have a beer.Leon said:
Can anyone sane tell me whether to worry about omicron variants??Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I’m having a hoot doing an odyssey around the world. I don’t want covid FUCKING IT UP AGAIN0 -
You are missing the point that all these businesses you quote are about to be hit with a tourist tax on top of thisFarooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.
If this had been proposed for Devon and Cornwall or the Lake district you would have had a torrent of anger from the holiday industry
And by the way I do not lie
0 -
Well it took 9 balls, but Livingstone just hit it out the ground.1
-
Tim Farron is running for re-election on the very question of holiday lets.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You are missing the point that all these businesses you quote are about to be hit with a tourist tax on top of thisFarooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.
If this had been proposed for Devon and Cornwall or the Lake district you would have had a torrent of anger from the holiday industry
And by the way I do not lie
They aren't greatly popular in the Lakes with the locals who tend to rather prioritise having somewhere to live.2 -
How about "Starmer should be executed because he wanted a Second Referendum" Syndrome? I take it that's not you either?Leon said:
No, that was quite funny, I’m afraid. A clever parody of the German compound nounNigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
I would agree. Obvs I don’t suffer from it, I am cleverly wise and neutral observerNorthern_Al said:
Woke Derangement Syndrome is a thing too, I reckon. It can be found on here.Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can certainly also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing2 -
Brings a whole new meaning to the term “bag lady”.Leon said:
She keeps lifting up the bag to quickly eat sunflower seedsNigel_Foremain said:
I suspect she is an expert virologist who understand viruses are remarkably polite, and always refrain from attacking you if you are snacking0 -
Booooooo... Livingstone out.0
-
Yes but they bring in the income that no doubt supports many of their jobsdixiedean said:
Tim Farron is running for re-election on the very question of holiday lets.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You are missing the point that all these businesses you quote are about to be hit with a tourist tax on top of thisFarooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.
If this had been proposed for Devon and Cornwall or the Lake district you would have had a torrent of anger from the holiday industry
And by the way I do not lie
They aren't greatly popular in the Lakes with the locals who tend to rather priorities having somewhere to live.
There is a balance to be struck but applying a tourist tax and reducing holiday accommodation is not one of them
I should clarify I have no problem with high council tax (400-500% uplift) on peoples second homes that are not available to the holiday sector0 -
Might as well follow things to their logical extreme after all.turbotubbs said:
Every sperm is sacred.OnlyLivingBoy said:
Yes, I have seen The Handmaid's Tale.Nigelb said:You can see where this is heading...
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffSharlet/status/1529930193481220110
The governor of Oklahoma, who just signed a bill banning abortion, period, is being primaried by another Republican who says life begins *before* conception. Yes, you read that right.0 -
They don't bring in any income if they are empty.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Yes but they bring in the income that no doubt supports many of their jobsdixiedean said:
Tim Farron is running for re-election on the very question of holiday lets.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You are missing the point that all these businesses you quote are about to be hit with a tourist tax on top of thisFarooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.
If this had been proposed for Devon and Cornwall or the Lake district you would have had a torrent of anger from the holiday industry
And by the way I do not lie
They aren't greatly popular in the Lakes with the locals who tend to rather priorities having somewhere to live.
There is a balance to be struck but applying a tourist tax and reducing holiday accommodation is not one of them
And reducing holiday accommodation is smack bang what Farron thinks will keep him his seat.
He probably knows better than me what the locals think.
https://inews.co.uk/news/housing-crisis-is-spoiling-the-beauty-of-the-lakes-we-need-to-regulate-holiday-lets-and-second-homes-16484173 -
I much prefer your hilarious political prediction contributions to the ones where you try to mark other posters' homework (but thanks for the travel writing grade!Roger said:
I much prefer your travel contributions. They are as sharp and as observant as your German ones are bland prejudiced and ignorant.BlancheLivermore said:
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad.
).
When I comment on Germany's current actions, I'm quoting or echoing the sentiment from Germans who I follow on twitter. There are a remarkable number of them who agree with me.0 -
Johnson's new ministerial code removes all references to honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability. The opposition attacks just write themselves don't they?5
-
Genuinely no. I remember there was a brief period when the Tories weren't sure whether to argue Miliband was weak, or he was dangerous, which resulted in some very mixed messaging.Farooq said:
Remember how Ed Miliband was described as "Stalinist" by the Daily Mail?Farooq said:
Yeah except no. We could just as easily talk about Marxist derangement syndrome. You know, how teaching children that colonial history wasn't heroic.. MARXISM! and how wanting to prevent runaway climate change.. MARXISM! and allowing women not to be the unwilling vessels for a child they don't want.. MARXISM!Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can definitely also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
The right is just as mad as the left.0 -
Actually I edited my comment to affirm I have no problem with high council tax to second homes not available for holiday letsdixiedean said:
They don't bring in any income if they are empty.Big_G_NorthWales said:
Yes but they bring in the income that no doubt supports many of their jobsdixiedean said:
Tim Farron is running for re-election on the very question of holiday lets.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You are missing the point that all these businesses you quote are about to be hit with a tourist tax on top of thisFarooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.
If this had been proposed for Devon and Cornwall or the Lake district you would have had a torrent of anger from the holiday industry
And by the way I do not lie
They aren't greatly popular in the Lakes with the locals who tend to rather priorities having somewhere to live.
There is a balance to be struck but applying a tourist tax and reducing holiday accommodation is not one of them
And reducing holiday accommodation is smack bang what Farron thinks will keep him his seat.
He probably knows better than me what the locals think.0 -
When the EU sanctions and support started, I suggested we all have a bet when the first German politician suggests looking again at NordStream 2.BlancheLivermore said:
I much prefer your hilarious political prediction contributions to the ones where you try to mark other posters' homework (but thanks for the travel writing grade!Roger said:
I much prefer your travel contributions. They are as sharp and as observant as your German ones are bland prejudiced and ignorant.BlancheLivermore said:
Why didn’t we also discourage them from funding murderous dictators..LDLF said:
An emasculated Germany (in foreign policy and defence) was also the NATO aim during the Cold War.Farooq said:
One of the key parties to defeating Nazism was... Germany.Unpopular said:
I would happily be for Germany. It's a country with a complicated history, particularly in the field of armed conflict, to put it mildly. It has pursued, misguidedly for decades, a policy of Ostpolitik. I think there is a complicated national psychology, in that the Soviet Union played a key role (arguably the key role) in ending Nazism and not just in the East. It's by no meaning a feeling of gratitude but there is a something towards Russia that surprised me when I lived there. It wasn't a fear either, but a sense they were so powerful as demanding attention. Secondly, because of the aforementioned history, Germany became intensely pacifist. For decades they have had both a tolerance towards Russia and an aversion to armed conflict. I once spoke to a friend over a few beers and he, very educated young man, believed there was something innately evil at the heart of Germany. I think there is a determination to minimise suffering by whatever means, after all a humane war is a quick war.BlancheLivermore said:
The one which started with you throwing a "fuck yourself" hissy fit on the last thread because I called you Nigelforgermany?Nigel_Foremain said:
If I am one of those stupid children you must have had the pointy hat on with a D on it because I don't think any impartial observer would think you are winning this exchangeBlancheLivermore said:
I swore at you in German in reply on the last thread. And I'll do it again; Schwanzlutscher.Nigel_Foremain said:
I have always enjoyed a good expletive. A prudish disdain for it only shows your lack of class and style that fits well with your low intellect excuses for xenophobia.BlancheLivermore said:
It'll take some more effort to convince me that you're a grown up. You resort to crude expletive laden abuse at such a low threshold; you remind me of the stupidest children at school.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh dear. Playground stuff. If you want to debate with the grownups you ought to wait until you have graduated to senior school.BlancheLivermore said:
Ok Nigelforgermanappeasementpolicies.Nigel_Foremain said:
I am not an apologist for him. The German nation has moved form being a militaristic nation to a pacifist one. You are clearly too dim to realise this and make sweeping generalisations and judgements based on childish anti-German prejudice.BlancheLivermore said:
Scholz apologists, on the other hand..Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologists generally have difficulty with paying attention beyond a few seconds.Applicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
Your crass rants are really low powered. As I said, you remind me of the stupid children from when I was at school.
You winner.
I believe both those things are misguided, but I also don't expect them to go away over night. Of all the triggers in the German psyche, armed conflict and Russia must top the list. Armed conflict with Russia, however remote a prospect is apocalyptic. As it was the last time.
Time will march on, Germany will eventually act like the Great Power it is and understanding that its wealth gives it obligations. It will take time, and I wish they'd hurry up but it is a lot of history to get over.
Stay with me now, this is a sensible point.
We've seen in the past how military defeat can sometimes lead to more virulent militarism. So yes, the Soviets and the Americans beat Germany in the war, but that didn't mean the automatic defeat of fascism.
Germans of the postwar era deserve a lot of credit for overcoming their past.
It didn't happen straight away. To begin there was a culture of silence, and memorials to the victims of the the holocaust tended to be vague or even absent. But in later decades, I think from the late 60s if memory serves, a more serious self-reckoning came about, especially in the younger generations. The silence was dropped and the world became a markedly better place for it.
It also greatly suited France, which saw (and arguably still sees) the purpose of the EU in its original incarnation as a pedestal from which German economic heft could be used to project French power (not how it ultimately ended up, but Macron may yet get his way!).
The political culture in Germany is not purely internally cultivated, it was actively encouraged from abroad. ).
When I comment on Germany's current actions, I'm quoting or echoing the sentiment from Germans who I follow on twitter. There are a remarkable number of them who agree with me.
Anyone want to guess?1 -
You will, won't you?
Jeremy Clarkson
@JeremyClarkson
Yeah but the thing is that soon, when you’re really hungry, you will eat your neighbour.
https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson/status/15302547048355471370 -
Season 2 of Clarkson's Farm sounds like it might take a dark turn...BlancheLivermore said:You will, won't you?
Jeremy Clarkson
@JeremyClarkson
Yeah but the thing is that soon, when you’re really hungry, you will eat your neighbour.
https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson/status/153025470483554713710 -
I'm not sure that someone on Twitter saying they heare that someone on the Mail claims to know what the Durham police are thinking is entirely persuasive. I doubt if the Durham police themselves have a view yet.BlancheLivermore said:Read earlier on twitter that the Mail has a story saying that Keir and 'Angie' are unlikely to get FPNs, due to the Cummings precedent.
2 -
Bag Lady doesn’t look like someone who is influenced by social media. @Leon did you see if she was logged into PB throughout the journey?Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can certainly also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing0 -
I don't smile about it, as I think it is true what people believe is far more important than truth (or facts) and that is worrisome. But are we not slightly at risk of suggesting the views of the less educated are not worth as much? And would that mean when the less educated supported other groups that should have been a problem too?OllyT said:
We might smile but Trump Republican's and Johnsonian Tories have both grasped that what people believe is far more important than the truth. Hence Trump's "Truth" social media project. Sadly, they are not wrong which is why both groups now poll far better amongst the less educated than has been the case during my lifetime.dixiedean said:
Indeed. Only yesterday the Telegraph was hyperventilating about a Hard Left Alliance. Containing, er, Ed Davey's Lib Dems.Farooq said:
Remember how Ed Miliband was described as "Stalinist" by the Daily Mail?Farooq said:
Yeah except no. We could just as easily talk about Marxist derangement syndrome. You know, how teaching children that colonial history wasn't heroic.. MARXISM! and how wanting to prevent runaway climate change.. MARXISM! and allowing not to be the unwilling vessels for a child they don't want.. MARXISM!Leon said:
NoIshmaelZ said:
Use of the expression {Foo} Derangement Syndrome is by a country mile the biggest wankerdom indicator on the internet.williamglenn said:
Those caveats could form the basis of a more interesting study into the real phenomenon of Boris Derangement Syndrome.Nigel_Foremain said:
Well, each to their own. If I were carrying out the survey I would need to put caveats for unconscious bias of my own, which in anything to do with Johnson would need to be considerable.Leon said:
Or, NOT fascinating. As the case may beNigel_Foremain said:
I would love to do a little psychological study on those that are susceptible to siding with or believing Boris Johnson and those in Russia that believe that Russia is carrying out a "special military operation" and "denazifying" Ukraine. Psychological profiling and surveying could be done to discover how much is actually down to just being genuinely gullible and how much is down to living in a state with restricted media. It would be quite fascinating.Nigel_Foremain said:
Oh, only one second.Applicant said:
There he goes again.Nigel_Foremain said:
I understand. Boris Johnson apologistsApplicant said:
I stopped reading there.Nigel_Foremain said:
What if it is a dumb recommendation? Someone with a modicum of decency might say, "hey that's not going to look good". But not your idolApplicant said:
When a politician is in a no-win situation, it's only fair to point that out.Nigel_Foremain said:
It has worked well for quite a long time, until this clown came into office. I have to congratulate you though, you must have a super thick skin and very flexible morals to be such an unapologetic apologist for Boris JohnsonApplicant said:Missing from the header: any mention of why the change was made.
But I guess it's too important that opposition politicians should be able to demand ministers' resignations for the most trivial of perceived transgressions.
He's done plenty of bad things. Implementing a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life is not one of them.
And the rewriting of the code is the least interesting thing about this story.
'In his introduction to the previous edition of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister said ministers must "uphold the very highest standards of propriety" - words that have been removed from the revamped edition.
The new introduction says the code should "guide my ministers on how they should act and arrange their affairs".
And the foreword no longer explicitly mentions the seven Nolan principles of public life - integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest.'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-waters-down-ethics-27083430
nothing there to give you a moment's pause?
“Derangement Syndrome” definitely exists. It is generally on the Left (for now, in the West) but can definitely also be found on the Right. It is one of the most peculiar new evolutions of our time; it is surely driven by social media
eg Trump Derangement Syndrome is totally a thing. It got so bad people banned debate of the mere idea that covid might have come from a chinese lab - even though this is highly plausible if not probable - just because Trump expressed it. It was banned FOR A YEAR. Mad. Deranged
Brexit Derangement Syndrome (AKA Stockholm Syndrome) can be found on the right and on the left
Boris Derangement Syndrome can be very much found on PB
After my encounter with Plastic Bag on Head Lady today, on a Greek bus, I wonder if there is a Covid Derangement Syndrome. People driven to crazy expressions of medical self defence - probably by their consumption of self-curated and terrifying information - and disinformation - on the net. And social media
It is a thing
The right is just as mad as the left.
As for Ed M. The Tories have implemented his policies and then some.0 -
Besides which, the desirability of a tourism levy and the desirability of a sumptuary tax on homes left empty for most of the year are two different issues.dixiedean said:
Tim Farron is running for re-election on the very question of holiday lets.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You are missing the point that all these businesses you quote are about to be hit with a tourist tax on top of thisFarooq said:
No, sorry, I don't believe you me.Big_G_NorthWales said:
This combined with the tourist tax will hit the holiday industry and believe you me it features all the time in the local media and Welsh news as various businesses forecast a fall in visitor numbers and a loss of holiday accommodationFarooq said:
It's not really destroying it, though, is it?Big_G_NorthWales said:
Destroying the holiday industry losing thousands of jobs in businesses across North Wales is madness and could only be dreamt up by a Corbynista who just does not understand the local economy and simply does not careFarooq said:
Maybe I just care about affordable housing more. Your empty-house policy leaves me as cold as a homeless person.Big_G_NorthWales said:
You clearly do not understand just how toxic this is for Welsh labour here in the heart of the North Wales holiday industry which is about to have a tourist tax put on them from Drakeford as wellFarooq said:
Sorry, this looks like great news. Why should properties that are empty for 294 days a year get a tax break?Big_G_NorthWales said:Drakeford's destroying North Wales holiday industry from Cardiff
Tourism leaders in Wales have reacted with horror to confirmation of new occupancy rules for second homes and holiday lets. From April 1, 2023, the Welsh Government will insist that self-catering properties are let for at least 182 days each year in a move critics say will “decimate” the Welsh tourism industry.
Holiday lettings firm Finest Retreats, which promotes 29 holiday cottages in Wales, warned the challenging occupancy target will hit rural economies the hardest by driving up prices and making the country a “less attractive place to visit”. Tom Giffard, Welsh Conservative shadow tourism minister said it was a “devastating blow”, adding: “These new letting requirements will frankly be impossible for many self-caterers to meet.”
The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), which represents 6,000 tourism operators in Wales, believes 84% of the country's holiday lets could now be forced to close. WTA chair Suzy Davies said genuine holiday businesses will be caught up in a policy designed to clamp down on second homes. “Like dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets, these businesses will die,” she cautioned.
On Tuesday, finance minister Rebecca Evans issued a written statement confirming Cardiff was pushing ahead with its plans despite opposition from the tourism sector. As with the Welsh Government’s new council tax policies, the approach is designed to tackle the housing crisis in Welsh-speaking communities in holiday hotspots.
The minister acknowledged that the stronger criteria “may be challenging for some operators to meet”. But she said: “The purpose of the change is to help ensure property owners are making a fair contribution to local communities, for example by increasing their contribution to the local economy through greater letting activity, or by paying council tax on their properties.”
To continue paying business rates, holiday rentals must be let for 182 days from April 1, 2023. Currently, the threshold is just 70 days. If holidays fail to meet the threshold, they pay council tax instead - and from April 2023 local counties will have the power to charge a council tax premium of up to 300%, effectively quadrupling bills.
Let people live there instead of keeping them empty for occasional holidaymakers. Good work Welsh Labour.
These figures show that in the last three years before Covid, self-catering occupancy stood at 58%, 55% and 57%. So how many properties will really be caught up in that anyway?
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-01/wales-accommodation-occupancy-survey-2019_0.pdf
And scroll on a page, you'll see that North Wales's figures are actually the strongest in Wales, averaging at 64%.
Even if a number of providers decide to drop out of the market, all that will do is increase the occupancy in competitors.
No, sorry, it seems you've been taken in by a scare story. The numbers don't fit at all with the apocalyptic predictions. Welsh Labour derangement syndrome, as Leon would probably call it.
Apart from anything you're pretending the tourist industry is solely based around the kind of self-catering accommodation being referred to. Hotels, camping & caravans are a big part of the tourist industry, and non self-catering accommodation drives people to restaurants instead of supermarkets for their evening meal.
No, the more I think about this the more I think this is a good move. Prune out the holiday lets that are underoccupied and they become either better-run lets, or housing for actual people.
If this had been proposed for Devon and Cornwall or the Lake district you would have had a torrent of anger from the holiday industry
And by the way I do not lie
They aren't greatly popular in the Lakes with the locals who tend to rather priorities having somewhere to live.
Infrequently occupied second homes and infrequently occupied holiday lets strike me as not being all that dissimilar conceptually. The former are luxurious baubles for the wealthy and the latter are little cash machines for the wealthy (and as far as I'm concerned anyone who can afford to own multiple houses is wealthy, and not merely comfortably off.)
Regardless, there's no good argument - especially in the current economic climate - for throwing unproductive tax breaks at the rich, and especially not when we have a very serious problem in this country with a severe lack of affordable housing, partly caused by the promotion of homes as lucrative investments rather than as places to live.
As far as I'm concerned, residential properties are places for people to reside. So, yes, you will have cases such as undergraduate student accommodation where they are bound to lie empty for a while, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect them to be occupied for at least the bulk of the year. Under-occupied homes that are left lying empty for eight or nine months of every year constitute a form of parasitism upon the communities in which they are located. It seems reasonable that their owners ought at least to be made to compensate those communities accordingly.0
