As there were never 40 hospitals anyway, who cares?
It was 3 new hospitals! 25 rebuilds and 12 new wings. Reminds me of Triggers Broom.
Rebuilds are new hospitals though.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Replacing the interior of an old out of date existing hospital building would generally be considered as maintenance. It does not add capacity in the same way a new hospital does. With an ageing and growing population more than 3 new hospitals in a decade would perhaps have been helpful.
Are we also building a new House of Commons? Or refurbing it?
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
That seems a very sensible decision on the part of the people of Gibf-Oberfric.
As there were never 40 hospitals anyway, who cares?
It was 3 new hospitals! 25 rebuilds and 12 new wings. Reminds me of Triggers Broom.
Rebuilds are new hospitals though.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Replacing the interior of an old out of date existing hospital building would generally be considered as maintenance. It does not add capacity in the same way a new hospital does. With an ageing and growing population more than 3 new hospitals in a decade would perhaps have been helpful.
Are we also building a new House of Commons? Or refurbing it?
The stats presented don't say up front how many hospitals have been closed or downgraded. The little word 'net' was always missing IIRC.
This feels very like '97. The country feels like it is waking up from a nightmare.This government is not just becoming a laughing stock it's becoming reviled.
97 Labour was clearly popular and well regarded. Now it is more like they can't be any worse than the muppets.
This is absolutely right. It is not so much that Labour are a popular choice, but the Tories are falling apart.
If Majors government had been experiencing this sort of dysfunction 1997 would have probably left the Tories sub-100 seats.
The reason Labour will win the next GE is because pretty much anyone can look at the government now and say that they need to be removed. Labour are the alternative and whilst SKS is not Blair, they look measured and competent so it’s worth giving them a go.
It does however present a danger for Labour and Starmer in particular. Being elected because 'you are not the other guys' does mean your support is generally shallow and likely to evaporate very quickly. If and when Starmer does win he will not be able to rest on his laurels or claim some great sea change in politics. He will have to prove that his party really is different and can make a difference or his prospects will very rapidly decline.
Any port in a storm doesn't transform Grimsby into Rotterdam.
You are absolutely right again Richard. leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics.
This is where the Labour conference last week was poor, it was reactionary in the sense it didn’t engage with UKs problems as coherently as Truss platform does this week, Labour doesn’t challenge a consensus that is creaking at the seams with the pressure from globalisation, demographic time bomb, UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment and transformation.
Just as you said, Labours was a muggings turn, safety first conference - but there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and then out for eighteen whilst rival philosophy wields the blade and makes the necessary changes.
What planet are you living on?
"Truss's platform engages with the UK's problems" (my paraphrase).
"Growth is good. Growth is what we need to address Britain's problems. I have facilitated growth". Fantastic, but they are just meaningless platitudes. You could easily substitute "growth" for "magic" or "unicorns" or just "bullshit". Each statement would mean no more or no less.
This is where I claim the Labour conference last week was poor, I ask you to what degree did it engage with the pressure on UK from globalisation, demographic time bomb (and permanent higher inflation it brings) and transformation to UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment. Or was Labours a safety first conference - For all talk of not being Corbyn anymore it’s now very different, the proof of the pudding will be comparing what Starmer’s manifesto has to say about the main issues, compared to the solutions in Corbyn’s manifesto.
there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and out for eighteen years whilst rival philosophy as clear as Tory’s now laying down, wields the blade and makes necessary changes.
My own one nation instincts are not liking two nation solutions that widen the apartheid of the pocket, so leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics. Doesn’t it?
If your aim at the start of the day was "can I be really, really obtuse on PB today?" Mission accomplished!
Stop playing dum. We know you are intelligent, that cats out the bag,
To me good politics is engaging and winning the arguments, not coasting along safety first. You have to play the long game, and this means arguing and winning the argument. Last weeks Labour conference was poor on this benchmark.
But don’t just ask me what planet I am on for suggesting this, ask Ganesh - one of the more left wing economic columnists around, what planet he is on. For him the exact opposite of a Pyrrhic victory is a defeat that turns out to bring success in the long run
If Trussnomics attempting to answer the problems facing UK today, and Starmerology 😴 isn’t, that’s the very opposite of good politics, it’s a Pyrrhic victory regardless what opinion polls say going into the next election - if Tory’s go into 2029 election both challenging the consensus with their radical solutions, and ahead in the polls.
Janan Ganesh leftwing?
Only on PB.
I know!
We're being razzled by a moon rabbit ... moon rabbit moon rabbit
Janan was at university at the same time as me and was a Tory Association member for a time
Not surprised. He's trad non-populist centre right imo. Economically and socially liberal. Kind of a Topping without the uniform.
Yes I've chatted to him and this is exactly where he is - a Cameron era Tory. Nice chap and super smart but definitely not left-wing.
Ganesh was active in Labour Students, the student wing of the Labour Party, having been inspired to join when he was 17 by Tony Blair's 1999 annual Labour Party Conference speech. Ganesh opted not to attend his local constituency Labour Party meetings as they were "too dominated by Trots".
You are all quite sure of his GE voting record then? OK.
Ganesh co-authored Compassionate Conservatism in 2006, with Jesse Norman, the Tory MP. Rather like Truss, his allegiances have changed. He's a Tory.
So he is voting Truss at the next election?
Well anyway, I always read his pieces and like them as very thoughtful, but they come across as left leaning from my perspective.
As there were never 40 hospitals anyway, who cares?
It was 3 new hospitals! 25 rebuilds and 12 new wings. Reminds me of Triggers Broom.
Rebuilds are new hospitals though.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Replacing the interior of an old out of date existing hospital building would generally be considered as maintenance. It does not add capacity in the same way a new hospital does. With an ageing and growing population more than 3 new hospitals in a decade would perhaps have been helpful.
It depends if you're just talking cosmetic refurbishments or something more serious.
A rebuild of a crumbling hospital into a new hospital that's at high standards, and potentially has better equipment or capacity, is absolutely a new hospital though. If it replaces the old hospital there's no net extra hospitals, but you have the staff of the old hospital able to staff the new one which might be able to work better.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
Well, yes
Two hours later...
HMRC’s customer service and call centre headcount have been cut to the bone in repeated waves over a number of years.
Years ago you’d have got on the phone to a clerical officer, probably been working in the local tax office for 2 decades, and they’d have dealt with your issue there and then. A quick walk up to the inspector’s office, put it in the in tray and job done. Now you queue for a call centre employee who’s on a short term contract with hardly any training and your call gets logged on a database somewhere.
Governments keep asking them to find savings. So given they prefer not to cut front line compliance they keep having to look in the back office.
Complete false economy. One department you really want to give proper resources to is the one that collects revenue. Contrast with the IRS in the US who have been piling up the funding and resources in the last few years and increasing tax yield.
The IRS had to push in resource, for fear of total collapse.
And it’s worked. HMRC customer service is not far off.
Italy’s experience was the most ridiculous. A few years ago they decided to make cuts by demoting every employee by one grade overnight. They then proceeded to lose loads of their best staff to consultancies and faced months of strikes, during which of course their famous enforcement prowess dropped off a cliff.
Australian Tax Office are the biggest spenders. The only authority that is able to poach from industry and advisers with the offer of a pay rise.
As there were never 40 hospitals anyway, who cares?
It was 3 new hospitals! 25 rebuilds and 12 new wings. Reminds me of Triggers Broom.
Rebuilds are new hospitals though.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Replacing the interior of an old out of date existing hospital building would generally be considered as maintenance. It does not add capacity in the same way a new hospital does. With an ageing and growing population more than 3 new hospitals in a decade would perhaps have been helpful.
Are we also building a new House of Commons? Or refurbing it?
The stats presented don't say up front how many hospitals have been closed or downgraded. The little word 'net' was always missing IIRC.
Enough is Enough @eiecampaign · 46m Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
Boris fans please explain?
Have wages really stagnated? Those numbers in the FT had median household incomes going from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms, from 2000 to 2020. Only the very rich and very poor actually saw their incomes stagnate over that period.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
As there were never 40 hospitals anyway, who cares?
It was 3 new hospitals! 25 rebuilds and 12 new wings. Reminds me of Triggers Broom.
Rebuilds are new hospitals though.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Replacing the interior of an old out of date existing hospital building would generally be considered as maintenance. It does not add capacity in the same way a new hospital does. With an ageing and growing population more than 3 new hospitals in a decade would perhaps have been helpful.
It depends if you're just talking cosmetic refurbishments or something more serious.
A rebuild of a crumbling hospital into a new hospital that's at high standards, and potentially has better equipment or capacity, is absolutely a new hospital though. If it replaces the old hospital there's no net extra hospitals, but you have the staff of the old hospital able to staff the new one which might be able to work better.
Lets say old crumbling hospital has an output of 0.5 and a new one delivers 1.0
Replace crumbling one with new one in same building - output increases from 0.5 to 1 New one and keep crumbling one - output increases from 0.5 to 1.5
They are clearly not the same thing, so in resource discussions are worthy of separate descriptions so that we can know whether we are going from 0.5 to 1 or 0.5 to 1.5.
Enough is Enough @eiecampaign · 46m Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
Boris fans please explain?
Have wages really stagnated? Those numbers in the FT had median household incomes going from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms, from 2000 to 2020. Only the very rich and very poor actually saw their incomes stagnate over that period.
Enough is Enough @eiecampaign · 46m Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
Boris fans please explain?
Have wages really stagnated? Those numbers in the FT had median household incomes going from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms, from 2000 to 2020. Only the very rich and very poor actually saw their incomes stagnate over that period.
The Tories came to power in 2010.
The rise was a fairly steady one, over that period.
Enough is Enough @eiecampaign · 46m Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
Boris fans please explain?
Have wages really stagnated? Those numbers in the FT had median household incomes going from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms, from 2000 to 2020. Only the very rich and very poor actually saw their incomes stagnate over that period.
The Tories came to power in 2010.
Sure I heard today it is all the fault of the Brownian consensus? Labour must have been in charge the last decade, surely?
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
Enough is Enough @eiecampaign · 46m Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
Boris fans please explain?
Have wages really stagnated? Those numbers in the FT had median household incomes going from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms, from 2000 to 2020. Only the very rich and very poor actually saw their incomes stagnate over that period.
The Tories came to power in 2010.
The rise was a fairly steady one, over that period.
As far as I’m aware, mean *real* wages have fallen since 2008.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
Who Guards The Guardians, though?
A key question. I like the idea of a supranational body you can appeal breaches of fundamental rights to. Second best, same but national only.
And when that “body” gets taken over by people who think abortion is on the list of criminal things that The People can’t be allowed to vote on?
Nothing's perfect but it's about the balance of risk and for me having certain fundamentals enshrined 'over and above' lowers the risk of egregious breaches. It's also why the wider the better - supranational better than national better than local better than nothing. For this, I mean, the protection of fundamentals, not for things generally. For things generally, power should rest at its lowest possible point compatible with efficiency, ie within reason.
The problem with supranational bodies is that they are virtually unchangeable. A friend used think that the UN would be a good place for such things. Imagine the Saudis on the Womens Rights Court, though….
The biggest danger with trying to “lock away” Wrong Behaviour is that it fails to deal with the problem of democratic consent. If you can only maintain human rights by denying the population their wishes, how long before the system is destroyed?
The Swiss system of using referenda as the ultimate arbiter seems to have worked extremely well.
The grouping needs to make some organic sense obviously. We're a fair way off global agreement on what universal rights are let alone being able to enforce them! But let's keep trying. Let's seek to evolve. I see this not as an alternative to democracy but a complement to it. Trust the people but not 100%. Majority rule is a simplistic brutish definition of what democracy really means. The "people" - or enough of them - can be bamboozled and manipulated and misled. Also quirky electoral systems and abuses can produce bizarre outcomes. We've seen that, haven't we. So let's have some extra protection for certain fundamentals.
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
Monday evening I posted the Truss pitch as
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive, you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
I wasn’t far out, it’s all there in the speech today wasn’t it. In fact Trussism is a simple pitch, not a complicated one.
I would like to see Labour engage with all of this in argument, not simply try to coast home playing safe, how about you?
What there wssn’t in Truss Speech today,, to its detriment, was no rabbit from the hat big announcement
“In the coming days we will move forward and sign contracts that will ensure our energy security for years to come - this government will be keeping the lights on this winter, and next winter, and the following winter regardless what the global situation will throw at us.”
“We will bring forward the details in Parliament next week how universal credit will rise this year in line with inflation.”
Etc.
That’s the way we would do it isn’t it?
I don't want Labour coasting home if it means they run scared of saying or proposing anything radical. I think they'll get the balance right. Propose nothing that jeopardises the win but avoid uber blandness. Starmer looks increasingly sure-footed to me. It's not ALL about the Tory implosion. Mostly, yes, but not all. He's nailing it really. In many ways he's nailing it.
That is Starmer UK PM 2024-2029. In those five years can you briefly describe Labours action on
Globalisation. And very much tied in with this, Making Brexit Work.
Growth. And how it’s shared around UK.
demographic time bomb (and managing the inflation it brings)
How Labour achieve their housing policy. Labours housing policy in particular seems light on convincing detail.
transformation to UKs post industrial society now woefully behind curve on training and investment.
Are Labour keen on property tax? Will they be honest enough in their manifesto to promise to ramp property taxes ?
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
So start voting for those who will invest in public services rather than looking for endless efficiency savings, like not employing anyone to answer the phone in the hope you give up.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
Now imagine you are awaiting a trial to give testimony against your attacker; or need an ambulance; or have kids in school.
You should be thankful you only have to deal with one relatively minor aspect of collapsing public services.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
This feels very like '97. The country feels like it is waking up from a nightmare.This government is not just becoming a laughing stock it's becoming reviled.
97 Labour was clearly popular and well regarded. Now it is more like they can't be any worse than the muppets.
This is absolutely right. It is not so much that Labour are a popular choice, but the Tories are falling apart.
If Majors government had been experiencing this sort of dysfunction 1997 would have probably left the Tories sub-100 seats.
The reason Labour will win the next GE is because pretty much anyone can look at the government now and say that they need to be removed. Labour are the alternative and whilst SKS is not Blair, they look measured and competent so it’s worth giving them a go.
It does however present a danger for Labour and Starmer in particular. Being elected because 'you are not the other guys' does mean your support is generally shallow and likely to evaporate very quickly. If and when Starmer does win he will not be able to rest on his laurels or claim some great sea change in politics. He will have to prove that his party really is different and can make a difference or his prospects will very rapidly decline.
Any port in a storm doesn't transform Grimsby into Rotterdam.
You are absolutely right again Richard. leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics.
This is where the Labour conference last week was poor, it was reactionary in the sense it didn’t engage with UKs problems as coherently as Truss platform does this week, Labour doesn’t challenge a consensus that is creaking at the seams with the pressure from globalisation, demographic time bomb, UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment and transformation.
Just as you said, Labours was a muggings turn, safety first conference - but there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and then out for eighteen whilst rival philosophy wields the blade and makes the necessary changes.
What planet are you living on?
"Truss's platform engages with the UK's problems" (my paraphrase).
"Growth is good. Growth is what we need to address Britain's problems. I have facilitated growth". Fantastic, but they are just meaningless platitudes. You could easily substitute "growth" for "magic" or "unicorns" or just "bullshit". Each statement would mean no more or no less.
This is where I claim the Labour conference last week was poor, I ask you to what degree did it engage with the pressure on UK from globalisation, demographic time bomb (and permanent higher inflation it brings) and transformation to UKs post industrial society woefully behind curve on training and investment. Or was Labours a safety first conference - For all talk of not being Corbyn anymore it’s now very different, the proof of the pudding will be comparing what Starmer’s manifesto has to say about the main issues, compared to the solutions in Corbyn’s manifesto.
there’s little point of a political movement being in power 5 years changing nothing, and out for eighteen years whilst rival philosophy as clear as Tory’s now laying down, wields the blade and makes necessary changes.
My own one nation instincts are not liking two nation solutions that widen the apartheid of the pocket, so leaving opponents as the only ones with solutions to the problems on the table has to be rubbish politics. Doesn’t it?
If your aim at the start of the day was "can I be really, really obtuse on PB today?" Mission accomplished!
Stop playing dum. We know you are intelligent, that cats out the bag,
To me good politics is engaging and winning the arguments, not coasting along safety first. You have to play the long game, and this means arguing and winning the argument. Last weeks Labour conference was poor on this benchmark.
But don’t just ask me what planet I am on for suggesting this, ask Ganesh - one of the more left wing economic columnists around, what planet he is on. For him the exact opposite of a Pyrrhic victory is a defeat that turns out to bring success in the long run
If Trussnomics attempting to answer the problems facing UK today, and Starmerology 😴 isn’t, that’s the very opposite of good politics, it’s a Pyrrhic victory regardless what opinion polls say going into the next election - if Tory’s go into 2029 election both challenging the consensus with their radical solutions, and ahead in the polls.
Janan Ganesh leftwing?
Only on PB.
I know!
We're being razzled by a moon rabbit ... moon rabbit moon rabbit
Janan was at university at the same time as me and was a Tory Association member for a time
Not surprised. He's trad non-populist centre right imo. Economically and socially liberal. Kind of a Topping without the uniform.
Yes I've chatted to him and this is exactly where he is - a Cameron era Tory. Nice chap and super smart but definitely not left-wing.
Ganesh was active in Labour Students, the student wing of the Labour Party, having been inspired to join when he was 17 by Tony Blair's 1999 annual Labour Party Conference speech. Ganesh opted not to attend his local constituency Labour Party meetings as they were "too dominated by Trots".
You are all quite sure of his GE voting record then? OK.
I think it is safe to assume that anyone inspired to join Labour by a Tony Blair speech is, as I have said, definitely not left wing.
Enough is Enough @eiecampaign · 46m Here’s how it works:
📉 Tories preside over longest wage stagnation in British history
😡 Millions of workers can’t afford to heat or eat
💪 Trade unions organise workers to fight for better wages
🤯 Tories call us “anti-growth”
Boris fans please explain?
Have wages really stagnated? Those numbers in the FT had median household incomes going from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms, from 2000 to 2020. Only the very rich and very poor actually saw their incomes stagnate over that period.
The Tories came to power in 2010.
The rise was a fairly steady one, over that period.
As far as I’m aware, mean *real* wages have fallen since 2008.
These are the ONS numbers. It's possible to reconcile rising household incomes with static wages by their being an increase in the number of people in work per household.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
I'm a mild-mannered sort of chap, but when I've heard "your call is important to us" 30 times in an hour, as I frequently do with all sorts of public and private services, my language is off the scale. It obviously isn't that f*****g important to you, or you'd hire more staff.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
AP - Princess Anne takes the Staten Island ferry to Manhattan
NEW YORK (AP) — Princess Anne took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry during a visit to New York City.
The sister of Britain’s King Charles III was ushered to the ferry’s pilothouse as the Manhattan-bound ship crossed
The sister of Britain’s King Charles III was ushered to the ferry’s pilothouse as the Manhattan-bound ship crossed the New York Harbor on Tuesday escorted by police boats. A fireboat greeted the ferry with a water display just before docking, according to silive.com.
The ferry trip came after the princess was given a tour of Staten Island’s National Lighthouse Museum. The visit included an an unveiling of a miniature figurine of Needles Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, in memory of her parents. . . .
“The lighthouse still has a really important part to play,” she said. “The story that goes with lighthouses and how we got here is just as important, and (the) museum has made an astonishing impact in telling that story.”
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The National Lighthouse Museum welcomed Princess Anne on Tuesday in a monumental show of support for the historic St. George gem. . .
The princess royal’s highly anticipated — albeit incredibly low-profile — visit to Staten Island came nearly 65 years to the day that her late parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, toured the borough. . . .
As she worked her way around the museum, Anne stopped at each person she encountered to offer a warm handshake, a bit of conversation and a quick-witted comment. She was given a tour . . .and was apprised of the museum’s plans for the future. . . .
Following an unveiling of a miniature figurine of Needles Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, in memory of her parents, the princess royal made her way via private car to the St. George Ferry Terminal, where she boarded the [Staten Island ferry] Sandy Ground slightly before noon.
Upon boarding she was brought to the ship’s pilothouse, where she remained for the journey across New York Harbor as NYPD patrol boats rode alongside. An FDNY fireboat greeted the Sandy Ground with a magnificent water display just before docking.
SSI - If you've got time, check out rest of this story, gives story of how the Staten Island Lighthouse Museum was able to recruit the Princess Royal to help their truly worthy cause.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
Now imagine you are awaiting a trial to give testimony against your attacker; or need an ambulance; or have kids in school.
You should be thankful you only have to deal with one relatively minor aspect of collapsing public services.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
Its a really stupid false economy as well, a bit like not funding the courts.
If you want to encourage new small businesses, stuff like being able to talk to someone at HMRC in five mins and get a sensible answer would make more difference than whether corporation tax is 19 or 20%.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
Now imagine you are awaiting a trial to give testimony against your attacker; or need an ambulance; or have kids in school.
You should be thankful you only have to deal with one relatively minor aspect of collapsing public services.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
I believe in democracy, yes. I think that's the best safeguard for all our civil rights, including minority rights.
I would oppose KKK villages and I would hope my countrymen and women would too and would, like me, vote accordingly.
Telling elected governments they can't do what they're elected to do just undermines democracy. If the court is on your side, then you may think that's a good thing, but what happens when the court turns against you? When the court is packed with "Judges" that are against your liberties, and Parliament is neutered, then where do you turn?
But elected governments often do what they're NOT elected to do, don't they. There are countless examples of that. When it comes to protecting fundamental human rights give me a judge* over an "elected" politician any day.
Ukraine have been capturing a lot of vintage T-62 tanks in Kherson. What's particularly notable about this is that, when Ukraine made its rapid advance to liberate Kharkiv oblast, it was partly explained on the basis that Russia had weakened that front to move its best forces to defend Kherson. So, um, where are those best forces, then, if they're equipped with T-62 tanks in Kherson?
AP - Princess Anne takes the Staten Island ferry to Manhattan
NEW YORK (AP) — Princess Anne took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry during a visit to New York City.
The sister of Britain’s King Charles III was ushered to the ferry’s pilothouse as the Manhattan-bound ship crossed
The sister of Britain’s King Charles III was ushered to the ferry’s pilothouse as the Manhattan-bound ship crossed the New York Harbor on Tuesday escorted by police boats. A fireboat greeted the ferry with a water display just before docking, according to silive.com.
The ferry trip came after the princess was given a tour of Staten Island’s National Lighthouse Museum. The visit included an an unveiling of a miniature figurine of Needles Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, in memory of her parents. . . .
“The lighthouse still has a really important part to play,” she said. “The story that goes with lighthouses and how we got here is just as important, and (the) museum has made an astonishing impact in telling that story.”
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The National Lighthouse Museum welcomed Princess Anne on Tuesday in a monumental show of support for the historic St. George gem. . .
The princess royal’s highly anticipated — albeit incredibly low-profile — visit to Staten Island came nearly 65 years to the day that her late parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, toured the borough. . . .
As she worked her way around the museum, Anne stopped at each person she encountered to offer a warm handshake, a bit of conversation and a quick-witted comment. She was given a tour . . .and was apprised of the museum’s plans for the future. . . .
Following an unveiling of a miniature figurine of Needles Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, in memory of her parents, the princess royal made her way via private car to the St. George Ferry Terminal, where she boarded the [Staten Island ferry] Sandy Ground slightly before noon.
Upon boarding she was brought to the ship’s pilothouse, where she remained for the journey across New York Harbor as NYPD patrol boats rode alongside. An FDNY fireboat greeted the Sandy Ground with a magnificent water display just before docking.
SSI - If you've got time, check out rest of this story, gives story of how the Staten Island Lighthouse Museum was able to recruit the Princess Royal to help their truly worthy cause.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
1. This has all been planned out from the get go. She's deliberately being so bad so that in a few months she can hand back to Boris and everyone breaths a sigh of relief.
2. She's a Lib-Dem sleeper agent destroying the Tories from within.
3. She and her government really are as bad as they appear.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Not valid. The question is clearly what we voters think the party feels. Not what we think we feel. Even Tory voters are not the same set as the Party.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
Well it won’t matter in the post-apocalyptic wasteland you’ve been predicting for us all week.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
The problem is Boris would probably end up in prison if he remained as PM.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Your disillusionment with the libertarian Truss suggests you need a new life plan. You could be the founder member and the Leader of the BBB (Bring Back Boris) Party.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
The problem is Boris would probably end up in prison if he remained as PM.
And you think most voters would prefer Truss in power even then over a Boris in prison (provided it is a less than a year sentence he could still serve from jail)?
As there were never 40 hospitals anyway, who cares?
It was 3 new hospitals! 25 rebuilds and 12 new wings. Reminds me of Triggers Broom.
Rebuilds are new hospitals though.
Denying that they are new, is the whole Triggers Broom joke.
Replacing the interior of an old out of date existing hospital building would generally be considered as maintenance. It does not add capacity in the same way a new hospital does. With an ageing and growing population more than 3 new hospitals in a decade would perhaps have been helpful.
It depends if you're just talking cosmetic refurbishments or something more serious.
A rebuild of a crumbling hospital into a new hospital that's at high standards, and potentially has better equipment or capacity, is absolutely a new hospital though. If it replaces the old hospital there's no net extra hospitals, but you have the staff of the old hospital able to staff the new one which might be able to work better.
So, you agree that the claim of 40 new hospitals was a lie, but you’re just quibbling about how much of a lie it was?
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Your disillusionment with the libertarian Truss suggests you need a new life plan. You could be the founder member and the Leader of the BBB (Bring Back Boris) Party.
I think that is now most of the Tory Party judging by my chats this week with Tory members, councillors etc
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
1. This has all been planned out from the get go. She's deliberately being so bad so that in a few months she can hand back to Boris and everyone breaths a sigh of relief.
2. She's a Lib-Dem sleeper agent destroying the Tories from within.
3. She and her government really are as bad as they appear.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
Well, yes
Two hours later...
"For fat gormless twats Wanking From Home, press 1"
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
I suspect Nancy has a few other issues as well.
Nancy sounds like a pain in the arse.
But withholding her citizenship is not proportionate. They should give Nancy a passport. I'm going to write to the Swiss Consulate.
I'm still awaiting Certs of Residence from HMRC, 8 months after applying, after calls, letters and emails
It is pitiful. These fat gormless twats are Wanking From Home, sorry, Wanking From Home, and they are useless
They are about to lose me £1000s through sheer incompetence. If the UKG thinks it is getting another penny of tax out of me they can think again. I'm now an official Tax Exile. Fuck em
Maybe you shouldn't have used those terms when you called them?
If only I could get the chance. "We are suffering severe delays, you may have to wait longer than normal"
Well, yes
Two hours later...
"For fat gormless twats Wanking From Home, press 1"
If you want a choice of home or office, toss for it.
On the instructions of the country's greatest tosser, Rees-Mogg.
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
The problem is Boris would probably end up in prison if he remained as PM.
And for the current lot, it is a shame the SFO is another seriously underfunded and incompetent department, otherwise it could perhaps have a look into sensitive market info being leaked ahead of public release to active market participants.
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr.....
I need to contact them, because they've calculated my non-PAYE income as pure profit last year, and forgotten an advance payment I've made of £640. So they're asking me for 50% more than I actually owe.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
I suspect Nancy has a few other issues as well.
Nancy sounds like a pain in the arse.
But withholding her citizenship is not proportionate. They should give Nancy a passport. I'm going to write to the Swiss Consulate.
I'm with the Swiss here. It's entirely proportionate. Citizenship isn't a right. You have to be prepared to be a bit Swiss to be given it.
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
I didn’t claim that every possible subset of voters wanted it, so I’m not certain why you’re making a complaint of this nature.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
I didn’t claim that every possible subset of voters wanted it, so I’m not certain why you’re making a complaint of this nature.
Glad to hear that we belong to a “possible subset” (sic).
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
The economy can probably “survive” when gilt rates are around 3%
At 4% we are talking certain recession and above that heavy recession.
Will Starmer be able to provide monetary tightening when he's in office ?
Strictly speaking that’s the BoE’s job.
The question for Starmer come 24 will be, will the market accept his investment plans, which for now at least, are based on similar borrowing assumptions to Truss’s.
Starmer/Reeves now have to confront the mess that Truss/Kwarteng have created, which means, essentially, either lower public spending or higher taxes.
Good luck with getting lower public spending through their vote.
So, higher taxes it is. Will the pips squeak? Again?
This is the GE framing that Truss & Co are planning, I think. "Do you want to pay more tax with Labour?"
Monday evening I posted the Truss pitch as
From highest tax take since the war your taxes back in your family’s housekeeping pot to spend how you wish, you want the idle hooked on state hand outs to find a job, as they are in bed as you go out for your first job of the day to come back to news tte country is unproductive, you want growth, you want Aspiration Britain, productivity and growth (and growth, did I mention growth?) You want an end to our nations decline, you want a UK punching it’s weight in world again.
I wasn’t far out, it’s all there in the speech today wasn’t it. In fact Trussism is a simple pitch, not a complicated one.
I would like to see Labour engage with all of this in argument, not simply try to coast home playing safe, how about you?
What there wssn’t in Truss Speech today,, to its detriment, was no rabbit from the hat big announcement
“In the coming days we will move forward and sign contracts that will ensure our energy security for years to come - this government will be keeping the lights on this winter, and next winter, and the following winter regardless what the global situation will throw at us.”
“We will bring forward the details in Parliament next week how universal credit will rise this year in line with inflation.”
Etc.
That’s the way we would do it isn’t it?
I don't want Labour coasting home if it means they run scared of saying or proposing anything radical. I think they'll get the balance right. Propose nothing that jeopardises the win but avoid uber blandness. Starmer looks increasingly sure-footed to me. It's not ALL about the Tory implosion. Mostly, yes, but not all. He's nailing it really. In many ways he's nailing it.
That is Starmer UK PM 2024-2029. In those five years can you briefly describe Labours action on
Globalisation. And very much tied in with this, Making Brexit Work.
Growth. And how it’s shared around UK.
demographic time bomb (and managing the inflation it brings)
How Labour achieve their housing policy. Labours housing policy in particular seems light on convincing detail.
transformation to UKs post industrial society now woefully behind curve on training and investment.
Are Labour keen on property tax? Will they be honest enough in their manifesto to promise to ramp property taxes ?
Between 24 and 29, If Starmerism doesn’t answer these questions set here, what makes you super confident Trussism, which suffers pyrrhic defeat in 24, doesn’t win in 29?
Is it not fair enough to say, struggle with the questions I set there during 5 years in power, and the current polling can be quite the opposite in 29, Trussism (minus Truss) can win.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
I didn’t claim that every possible subset of voters wanted it, so I’m not certain why you’re making a complaint of this nature.
Glad to hear that we belong to a “possible subset” (sic).
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
"Nancy has also objected to hunting, locals racing piglets and even the sound of the village's church bells."
I suspect Nancy has a few other issues as well.
Nancy sounds like a pain in the arse.
But withholding her citizenship is not proportionate. They should give Nancy a passport. I'm going to write to the Swiss Consulate.
I'm with the Swiss here. It's entirely proportionate. Citizenship isn't a right. You have to be prepared to be a bit Swiss to be given it.
They're telling her she can't have it because she "bores them". This is not on imo. It's capricious.
How's it a flaw? Yes she's said that NIMBYs are a problem, and she's right to do so. And she's promised proposals (and given outlines) on fixing that problem, which would be great if it goes through.
The bigger problem is that the backbench rebels will probably defeat her reforms, as they did when Boris tried to get sensible zoning reforms through, in which case the Tories deserve to lose the next election.
The problem the Tory party has is build or trigger the building sufficient houses where they are needed and that seat is probably a "Home County Lib Dem*" win come the next election
* other Lib Dem parties with different policies are available where nimby votes aren't important...
They're in office, they're responsible.
If they succeed in getting the laws right so homes are built, then that may lead to a Lib Dem win.
If they fail to get the laws right so homes aren't built, then they deserve to lose the seat to the Lib Dems anyway.
If you're not going to use your limited time in office to do something for the good of the country, only to try to extend your limited time in office, then you don't deserve any time in the first place.
There is very little legislation or regulation against a vast amount of home building. The presumption just about anywhere for planning permission is that it will be granted.
Supply is not the problem, affordability (or conversely the IRR of the developers) is the problem.
You are tilting at windmills demanding that restrictions be removed when there are precious few hurdles to building more homes today.
I am afraid trying to point out that obvious truth to Bart is simply banging your head against a wall. I know, I have had this fight many times before. His perception of the scope and effect of planning laws is very far removed from reality.
The scope and effect of planning laws, as we've discussed before, is to put the power for developing homes into the hands of "developers" that can navigate those laws and can have the scale to do the burdens put upon them for an entire estate.
Issues like schools, services etc should be completely divorced from house building, no individual home is responsible for needing a school or any other service.
So who would pay for those services - if not the companies profiteering from the development???
The Council from Council Tax etc
More houses means more Council Tax means more funding for schools.
If an elderly couple die and their house is sold and is bought by someone with children then the demand for schools may change, but you don't expect them to build a new school for that home do you?
If a young couple buy a home, then live in it for fifty years, they may then need social care rather than schooling.
Demands change. The Council should handle that from its taxes for the services it provides.
The council is voted in by the residents so that they can make these decisions. It is democracy at work to disallow someone from building a multi-storey block of flats in a village field if the villagers don't want it to be built there and would have to pay, via their Council tax, if it was built.
And if those voters determined they don't want any black people in their village? Should that be voted for too?
If someone wants to build a block of flats on their own land then that is their own land, not the villagers land.
I thought you had an almost mystical respect for voting? Eg whenever I've suggested - as is my wont - that some things should be enshrined above and beyond the hurly burly of electoral politics you have always bridled.
I do.
If people want to create a law that allows NIMBYism, they should be allowed to do so. If people want to create a law that allows racism, they should be allowed to do so.
However I retain the right to vehemently oppose both. I can and do have my own opinions on what the law should be, while respecting others right to disagree with me.
In order to end racism or NIMBYism or sexism or any other destructive -ism we need to win the argument, not just have the law match our desires.
Well to take your example, I don't think a village should be able to ban black people from living there. Not even if it's a landslide vote by the residents in favour. We will have to agree to disagree on this matter. As on one or two others.
I don't think they should be able to either, but what I think may not win elections.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to have a national law preventing residents from blocking black people/developments etc in their area. If a black family wants to build a home on their own land, they absolutely should be able to, and no residents of the village should get a say to deny them that right.
We do have such a national law, I believe. Where we differ is you think the government should be able to scrap it if it has the requisite votes in the Commons - opening the way for these KKK villages to spring up all over the Black Forest (which I guess would then have to change its name) - whereas I think the government should not be able to do that, elected or not.
You must think Switzerland is the most dystopian state in Europe.
In Switzerland, locals can vote on whether someone can become a citizen and people of Gipf-Oberfric have had their say.
Nancy, who was born in the Netherlands, has campaigned for a long time against traditional Swiss cowbells, which animals wear to scare away predators and help farmers locate their livestock.
Tanja Suter, president of the local branch of the Swiss People's Party, explained the rejection, saying that Nancy has a "big mouth" and is annoyed by her campaigns.
"There are also Swiss who fight for the animal cause, but to be entitled to the passport, you have to show goodwill," Tanja tells local press.
"We do not want to give her this gift if she bores us and does not respect our traditions."
Not sure about "most dystopian state in Europe" but not keen, no.
There’s a lot of curtain twitching action there. I had a client who was new to Switzerland ticked off by the town hall for mowing the lawn on a Sunday after being grassed up (geddit?) by a neighbour.
I found Austria a bit like that too when I lived there. Quite oppressive.
I can believe it. Have always found Austria a lovely place to visit but gives off the vibe that there is a lot of pressure to conform.
Voters now wanting Boris back already just a few weeks after he left No 10.
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
The question is about the party regretting it - not the voters .
Nonetheless the huge 26% swing to regret Boris going since July suggests that is the public mood too. On a forced choice between Boris back or keeping Truss, most voters now want Boris back
Thank heavens those aren’t actually the only two choices! In a non-forced choice, the voters overwhelmingly want Labour in office instead.
”The voters”? “Overwhelmingly”?
53% of Welsh voters 53% of English voters 29% of Scottish voters No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
Fantastic news the majority of Scottish voters now want to keep the Conservatives in office and Labour out of power, I always knew the Scots would come round eventually!
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
This is deliberate policy when confronted with the need to make savings, when all the obvious savings have already been made. This adds cost to the HMRC with no benefit to them, so an obvious target. The alternative is to fund the service properly, which the current government has no desire to do.
To be fair, I did just get through to them after nearly 2 hours
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
"Thanks for waiting, your call is important to us"
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
I'm a mild-mannered sort of chap, but when I've heard "your call is important to us" 30 times in an hour, as I frequently do with all sorts of public and private services, my language is off the scale. It obviously isn't that f*****g important to you, or you'd hire more staff.
Very much like the robot voice on train station platforms that broadcasts one of the standard made-up excuses for why the train company doesn't know its arse from its elbow, ending with the phrase "We apologise for the late running/cancellation of this service, and the inconvenience caused." No you don't. You're a robot. And anyway, if your useless firm really cared about the inconvenience caused then it wouldn't cause the inconvenience quite so often as it actually does. Wazzocks.
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
Clearly you skimmed past the latest yougov poll today I just offered
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul) Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
That "they", in your grammar, refers to Tory voters. But it isd wrong. It refers to the Tory Parliamentary Party, in fact, in that survey.
No, it's their daily poll.
I think that they will regret Johnson going (because Truss is a disaster) but that doesn't mean that I want him back!
The clown has now left the circus, and the new ringmaster is now feeding the acrobats to the lions...
Actually it IS the figure in that survey about what [edit] conclusion we get from our mind-reading abilities to get into the heads of Tory MPs - see the tweet which HYUFD references (I did check).
At least the clown was fun, sometimes, if you were that way inclined ...
I went to Tory conference at Birmingham. The Conservative Party has been smashed. Truss is finished and is on her way out. My new piece for Middle East Eye:
Oborne there managing to provoke an ever rarer stirring in my sadly depleted middle-ages loins with his fruity talk of a complete Conservative collapse.
Comments
Are we also building a new House of Commons? Or refurbing it?
Officials at Downham Market and Clackclose Conservative Club said rising costs had put its future in doubt….
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/local-council/downham-market-conservative-club-rising-energy-bills-9311370
It's growing towards not existing
Well anyway, I always read his pieces and like them as very thoughtful, but they come across as left leaning from my perspective.
A rebuild of a crumbling hospital into a new hospital that's at high standards, and potentially has better equipment or capacity, is absolutely a new hospital though. If it replaces the old hospital there's no net extra hospitals, but you have the staff of the old hospital able to staff the new one which might be able to work better.
Italy’s experience was the most ridiculous. A few years ago they decided to make cuts by demoting every employee by one grade overnight. They then proceeded to lose loads of their best staff to consultancies and faced months of strikes, during which of course their famous enforcement prowess dropped off a cliff.
Australian Tax Office are the biggest spenders. The only authority that is able to poach from industry and advisers with the offer of a pay rise.
Said nobody
The country is still far better off under Truss.
Replace crumbling one with new one in same building - output increases from 0.5 to 1
New one and keep crumbling one - output increases from 0.5 to 1.5
They are clearly not the same thing, so in resource discussions are worthy of separate descriptions so that we can know whether we are going from 0.5 to 1 or 0.5 to 1.5.
NO IT FUCKING ISN'T, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED FOR TWO HOURS
Seriously. This is it. Like many on here I'm a higher rate taxpayer yet I've never really bothered to avoid tax, let alone evade it, I figure: I'm affluent, taxes are high buy fair, do my bit, it's easier and better
But if the UK state cannot do the basics like process a few documents in under a year, thus actually LOSING me money, to higher inflation and FOREIGN tax jurisdictions, then fuck the British state. No more of my money will it get
Globalisation. And very much tied in with this, Making Brexit Work.
Growth. And how it’s shared around UK.
demographic time bomb (and managing the inflation it brings)
How Labour achieve their housing policy. Labours housing policy in particular seems light on convincing detail.
transformation to UKs post industrial society now woefully behind curve on training and investment.
Are Labour keen on property tax? Will they be honest enough in their manifesto to promise to ramp property taxes ?
Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul)
Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577688378711179266?s=20&t=4uUwrWFHDrZGaw_bGo5JoQ
You should be thankful you only have to deal with one relatively minor aspect of collapsing public services.
However, He would still have probably been better electorically than Truss will be even with that.
I am sure it was the first Satuday in May for many years and it used to be in April before the 1950s.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2021
I suspect Nancy has a few other issues as well.
NEW YORK (AP) — Princess Anne took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry during a visit to New York City.
The sister of Britain’s King Charles III was ushered to the ferry’s pilothouse as the Manhattan-bound ship crossed
The sister of Britain’s King Charles III was ushered to the ferry’s pilothouse as the Manhattan-bound ship crossed the New York Harbor on Tuesday escorted by police boats. A fireboat greeted the ferry with a water display just before docking, according to silive.com.
The ferry trip came after the princess was given a tour of Staten Island’s National Lighthouse Museum. The visit included an an unveiling of a miniature figurine of Needles Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, in memory of her parents. . . .
“The lighthouse still has a really important part to play,” she said. “The story that goes with lighthouses and how we got here is just as important, and (the) museum has made an astonishing impact in telling that story.”
https://apnews.com/article/queen-elizabeth-ii-king-charles-iii-entertainment-new-york-1d9bb6185fab08770b1fa2f305414d89
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lighthouse_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needles_Lighthouse
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The National Lighthouse Museum welcomed Princess Anne on Tuesday in a monumental show of support for the historic St. George gem. . .
The princess royal’s highly anticipated — albeit incredibly low-profile — visit to Staten Island came nearly 65 years to the day that her late parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, toured the borough. . . .
As she worked her way around the museum, Anne stopped at each person she encountered to offer a warm handshake, a bit of conversation and a quick-witted comment. She was given a tour . . .and was apprised of the museum’s plans for the future. . . .
Following an unveiling of a miniature figurine of Needles Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, in memory of her parents, the princess royal made her way via private car to the St. George Ferry Terminal, where she boarded the [Staten Island ferry] Sandy Ground slightly before noon.
Upon boarding she was brought to the ship’s pilothouse, where she remained for the journey across New York Harbor as NYPD patrol boats rode alongside. An FDNY fireboat greeted the Sandy Ground with a magnificent water display just before docking.
SSI - If you've got time, check out rest of this story, gives story of how the Staten Island Lighthouse Museum was able to recruit the Princess Royal to help their truly worthy cause.
https://www.silive.com/news/2022/10/exclusive-princess-anne-visits-staten-island-royal-rides-the-ferry.html
If you want to encourage new small businesses, stuff like being able to talk to someone at HMRC in five mins and get a sensible answer would make more difference than whether corporation tax is 19 or 20%.
* Except not Brett Kavanaugh obviously.
@UAWeapons
#Ukraine: Two more Russian T-62M tanks were captured by the Ukrainian army in #Kherson Oblast...
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1577690262431846400
Ukraine have been capturing a lot of vintage T-62 tanks in Kherson. What's particularly notable about this is that, when Ukraine made its rapid advance to liberate Kharkiv oblast, it was partly explained on the basis that Russia had weakened that front to move its best forces to defend Kherson. So, um, where are those best forces, then, if they're equipped with T-62 tanks in Kherson?
1. This has all been planned out from the get go. She's deliberately being so bad so that in a few months she can hand back to Boris and everyone breaths a sigh of relief.
2. She's a Lib-Dem sleeper agent destroying the Tories from within.
3. She and her government really are as bad as they appear.
On the instructions of the country's greatest tosser, Rees-Mogg.
King Charles III coronation to be on June 3rd next year
And I notice Johnson's cheerleader (@HYUFD) is boasting the conservatives want Boris back
The only problem with that is the voters don’t, but then when has the conservative party cared about voters
And the lady, after much faffing, admitted
"Something has gone wrong"
Grr.....
53% of Welsh voters
53% of English voters
29% of Scottish voters
No Irish voters
Arrogance is not entirely confined to the Conservative Party.
(numbers: latest Survation)
'Do you think the Conservative parliamentary party will be glad they removed Boris Johnson from his position as party leader and Prime Minister, or regret having removed him?
Regret: 44% (+19 from 21 Jul)
Glad: 24% (-33)
65% of Tory voters say they will regret removing Boris
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1577688378711179266?s=20&t=4uUwrWFHDrZGaw_bGo5JoQ'
Not looking forward to it after reading this...
It makes even IDS or May speeches seem like passionate oratory by comparison
Is it not fair enough to say, struggle with the questions I set there during 5 years in power, and the current polling can be quite the opposite in 29, Trussism (minus Truss) can win.
Scottish Tories: 11%
@AngelaRayner
·
5h
Here's what's moving on up. Mortgage repayments. Interest rates. Rent. Prices. Energy bills. Food bills. Oil company profits. Bankers' bonuses. NHS waiting times.
You know what's not moving on up? Your pay. Your pension. The pound. The country.
I think that they will regret Johnson going (because Truss is a disaster) but that doesn't mean that I want him back!
The clown has now left the circus, and the new ringmaster is now feeding the acrobats to the lions...
LOL!
https://twitter.com/Gitro77/status/1577587733798715393
You’re too lazy to be a tax avoider/evader.
At least the clown was fun, sometimes, if you were that way inclined ...