I don't really understand that. I've had a bad cold for the last few days which turns out to be Covid. I wouldn't have dreamed of going into work and infecting colleagues, but I'm able to work reasonably well, so I do. Even if I didn't have much work ethic, I'd still feel it was a bit difficult to say "I can't work because I'm sniffling". How does working from home make it MORE likely that I'll take a day off because I feel or claim to feel seedy?
I agree. The Daily Mail's logic is difficult to understand.
It's not.
It's readers are all retirees who want to believe WFH is a skive, because they were never allowed to do it, and they can't get their heads around modern technology, so the paper is giving them what they want to hear.
I was allowed to do it now and again, and it was a skive. But that’s just me.
I work like a trooper at home, just as I do in the office. Even my father - who reads the Daily Mail, and still hasn't adjusted his view of anyone else doing it - commented as such when he stayed with us. I think in the past, because it was rare, you could effectively use it as a semi-free day off but, now, it's a fundamental part of how people work flexibly.
Of course, there are two types: those that diligently work and need minimal/no supervision, and those who try and get away with as little as possible. There are no doubt people mucking around at home who need to be virtually supervised, just as they'd muck around in the office if they weren't directly supervised, and it's important to check in with their progress, and measure their performance, just as you would in the office.
"those that diligently work and need minimal/no supervision, and those who try and get away with as little as possible"
Those two groups exist in the office too
As a boss, I see benefits (to me) from employees WFH: in particular, I can figure out pretty quickly who is pulling their weight.
Against that, it is hard for newer, less experienced staff to get up to speed.
It's also very much about personal preference. When I was young and hungry I spent Mondays at home (never Friday-the weekend starts here) to make appointments and catch up with paperwork. I worked diligently.
Doing what I do now and for the last twenty five years I realised quickly, as one of the army of self-employed, that Monday was best spent earning cash in front of customers and the appointment making could be completed hands-free on the road and paperwork completed at a motorway services between jobs. I am now older and fatter and I have an office twenty miles from home which I use on a Friday or when I have appointment cancellations. I get distracted there and bang out nonsensical posts on PB from time to time, but if I was home, I'd never get started.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
It would certainly be funny to witness the howls of Hertsmere residents who voted Labour and Lib Dem, to stop new development.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
In policy terms not really. I think it’s an area where there’s a big divide between the national and local parties.
Returning to my hypothesis of this morning that on immigration what we're seeing is:
1) Reduced European immigration to Leave voting areas. 2) Increased non-European immigration to Remain voting areas
Isn't that what both sides wanted ?
If so then why isn't everyone happy ?
Significant, and I mean genuinely significant, increase in the number of black people you see out and about in Knottingley, in Yvette Cooper’s ward, 68% leave IIRC. We’re where the A1 and M62 cross. Lots of warehousing and industry, 24 hour shift patterns.
When I lived in the Midlands 20 years ago and did similar work we had lots of Kurds, Iraqis, etc, but up here there were very, very few non-whites. Plenty of Eastern Europeans mind but unless you spoke to them you assumed they were native.
Very different now. Doesn’t bother me, but I do wonder what some of our more enthusiastic Brexiters think about it deep down. I suspect it isn’t quite what they expected.
Rub their racist noses in diversity as far as I’m concerned. But I bet they didn’t think when they voted to kick all the Europeans out they’d find themselves with black people moving here instead.
I’ve been, unfortunately, spending a lot of time at Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield recently. Lots and lots of African staff, again noticeably more than pre-Brexit. Backs up what my sister, a nurse, told me, that they’re recruiting from Africa to fill vacancies. She has no problem with black staff per se but she did say that their English generally isn’t as good as the EU workers we used to have, which causes problems.
My mum, sadly shifting ever rightward as she ages, mutters about ‘them’ not speaking English properly when I’ve been taking her to visit her poorly husband.
So, yeah, in this bit of the leave-voting Red Wall there’s definitely reduced European immigration. But it’s been replaced to a certain extent by non-white, African immigration. Make of that what you will.
Very noticeable in the northeast too. Over the past year the number of Africans being picked up in minibuses, and riding the regular buses in the very early mornings for work has risen exponentially*. From almost none in this town.
*Pedants may well note that it's relatively easy to rise exponentially from almost none... But you get my colloquial, anecdotal drift.
Basic reality - so many people do not want to do so many jobs. So the food factories and warehouses and care homes recruit people who want the work as opposed to the people who don't.
Some of this is down to wages - though there have been big spikes in some sectors due to the labour shortage. Some is down to the shift patterns or the nature of the job. Point is that if locals don't want the gig then someone has to do it.
I blame Simon Cowell and X-Factor culture. In some places we have several generations scarred by post deindustrialisation chronic unemployment. And a telly culture of endless "talent" shows where you don't need to graft you just become a star.
This govt lacks a coherent approach on almost any subject.
Still, cultural marxism.
Consider that the ONLY qualification for being a Tory candidate at the last election was that you unequivocally supported BoZo's shit Brexit deal, and the resultant quality of Government is apparent
A propos of nothing, James Cleverley is really the only decent choice the Tories have for leader if they lose the next election. He is not perfect, far from it, but he is a pragmatist who gives strong indications of living in the real world. If he stands and wins it would be a strong sign that the Tories are determined to be a serious party once more. If it's Braverman or Badenoch, Labour and the LibDems will be delighted.
I note with interest Lizzie Dripping is making another bid for glory in Taiwan as we speak. What has happened to the party of McMillan and RA Butler?
NEW / EXCL - breaking on #bbcnewsten and News online … Vauxhall owner Stellantis tells Government to renegotiate Brexit deal signed by Boris Johnson as it confirms for first time its UK electric car exports will not qualify for TCA from January as wont meet origin requirements.
Call their bluff. If they don't want to risk falling below the threshold to count as a UK export, they can invest in bringing more of their supply chain to the UK.
Or they just close their Liverpool factory and shunt production to another factory in the EU (which has always seemed to be the] long term plan).
Its what they will do. Their new owner Peugeot closed Ryton and moved production to Slovakia and they will want to do the same here, The UK like mugs just accepts it. We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
In policy terms not really. I think it’s an area where there’s a big divide between the national and local parties.
It follows the age old problem - everyone knows that a lot of new housing is needed but most people have the viewpoint it should be everywhere apart from their town (for which read Hertsmere, Amersham...).
Round here I really don't think anyone cares that much apart from the other side of town which voted Green because the next x,000 houses are over there and the road (northern bypass A1M J59 to A66) that was supposed to provide access isn't being built. Without that infrastructure it's going to be an absolute mare but if it existed I doubt anyone would have really cared.
NEW / EXCL - breaking on #bbcnewsten and News online … Vauxhall owner Stellantis tells Government to renegotiate Brexit deal signed by Boris Johnson as it confirms for first time its UK electric car exports will not qualify for TCA from January as wont meet origin requirements.
Call their bluff. If they don't want to risk falling below the threshold to count as a UK export, they can invest in bringing more of their supply chain to the UK.
Was BritishVolt not going to be a battery factory? That could be revived, Vauxhall could invest, the Government would have to grease the wheels, but we piss money at a lot of less worthwhile things.
You're right on the last point.
But the reality is that Britishvolt was a highly dubious project from that start, and government has no industrial strategy whatsoever on electric vehicle manufacturing at a time when every major manufacturer in the world is switching their production.
Brexit made it unattractive for them to invest in the UK; that required a major effort by government rather than token gestures. It took decades to rebuild the UK car industry after the 1970s. We're quite likely to see a repeat of that.
Productivity growth in the UK sank to its weakest level in a decade, outside of the pandemic period, in the first 3 months of the year: labour productivity, output per hour was 0.6% lower than in the first quarter of 2022, output per worker fell by 0.9%.
NEW: the Britishvolt #gigafactory project has been delayed yet again as the company's Australian owners, Recharge Industries, asks Northumberland County Council to modify a buy-back clause for a second time.
I don't really understand that. I've had a bad cold for the last few days which turns out to be Covid. I wouldn't have dreamed of going into work and infecting colleagues, but I'm able to work reasonably well, so I do. Even if I didn't have much work ethic, I'd still feel it was a bit difficult to say "I can't work because I'm sniffling". How does working from home make it MORE likely that I'll take a day off because I feel or claim to feel seedy?
I agree. The Daily Mail's logic is difficult to understand.
It's not.
It's readers are all retirees who want to believe WFH is a skive, because they were never allowed to do it, and they can't get their heads around modern technology, so the paper is giving them what they want to hear.
I was allowed to do it now and again, and it was a skive. But that’s just me.
I work like a trooper at home, just as I do in the office. Even my father - who reads the Daily Mail, and still hasn't adjusted his view of anyone else doing it - commented as such when he stayed with us. I think in the past, because it was rare, you could effectively use it as a semi-free day off but, now, it's a fundamental part of how people work flexibly.
Of course, there are two types: those that diligently work and need minimal/no supervision, and those who try and get away with as little as possible. There are no doubt people mucking around at home who need to be virtually supervised, just as they'd muck around in the office if they weren't directly supervised, and it's important to check in with their progress, and measure their performance, just as you would in the office.
"those that diligently work and need minimal/no supervision, and those who try and get away with as little as possible"
Those two groups exist in the office too
As a boss, I see benefits (to me) from employees WFH: in particular, I can figure out pretty quickly who is pulling their weight.
Against that, it is hard for newer, less experienced staff to get up to speed.
Yes, exactly- working from home makes no difference to employee performance per say.
You are right it's harder for newer and younger staff to get up to speed. That's why I have "anchor days" and go in at least 2 days a week.
The daily mail has become obsolete and irrelevant. 20 years ago it had a vast amount of cultural power. Now it has all disappeared. Trying to roll back WFH is a completely hopeless cause.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
Productivity growth in the UK sank to its weakest level in a decade, outside of the pandemic period, in the first 3 months of the year: labour productivity, output per hour was 0.6% lower than in the first quarter of 2022, output per worker fell by 0.9%.
Was BritishVolt not going to be a battery factory? That could be revived, Vauxhall could invest, the Government would have to grease the wheels, but we piss money at a lot of less worthwhile things.
Ah yes. Subsidies for British firms funded by British taxpayers to ensure they remain competitive. Very good. Very Conservative.
The poster in question is always bemoaning the post-Truss declinism of the current government, yet he is now endorsing the consummate 1970s declinism of 'picking winners', so beloved of Harold Wilson and Sunny Jim. The British Right is in intellectual free-fall.
The thing is, industrial policy has worked in Germany for many decades. Industrial strategy is also about long-term invesment as much as "picking winners", which we have been singularly awful at.
It has to be said certain City interests have always been keen to the raise this issue of 1970's industrial failure ( also linked to feudal management and obstreperous Unions ) because it obscures this other issue of short-term investment, as well as an excessively laissez-faire approach to key strategic national interests, over the last 30 years, up to and including issues like nuclear power generation, and to an extent unmatched almost anywhere else in the Western world.
It is an open question as to whether it was industrial policy as is commonly understood (i.e. picking and favouring winning sectors and companies and protecting them) that worked in Germany, or microeconomic policy more broadly, such as an excellent education and apprenticeship system, good infrastructure, more pro-growth planning laws than here and macroeconomic policy that emphasised low inflation. (Also of course cheap Russian gas from the 80s until last year).
I'd give the latter factors much more weight, and I haven't worked in the City in quite a few years.
Absolutely. Industrial policy does not mean 'picking winners'. That's a nonsense argument which dates back to the nonsense industrial policies of the Labour governments of the 1970s.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
Not necessaily wrong hough if your companies have a policy of low investment, cheap labour and closing down operations because the brits are easisest to sack whats in it for the country ?,
It took decades to rebuild the UK car industry after the 1970s. We're quite likely to see a repeat of that.
The PB Brexit Brain Trust, Car Industry Sub-committee, assured us there would be no adverse impact on UK car manufacture...
Project Fear !!!
I must confess, I suggested post- Brexit Mini production would move slowly but surely to Antwerp and Hungary at the expense of Cowley, I was wrong. Work is in hand to sub contract production to China at the expense of Cowley.
It is an open question as to whether it was industrial policy as is commonly understood (i.e. picking and favouring winning sectors and companies and protecting them) that worked in Germany, or microeconomic policy more broadly, such as an excellent education and apprenticeship system, good infrastructure, more pro-growth planning laws than here and macroeconomic policy that emphasised low inflation. (Also of course cheap Russian gas from the 80s until last year).
I'd give the latter factors much more weight, and I haven't worked in the City in quite a few years.
When you put it like that you can also see that having frictionless trade with your nearest and largest customers and suppliers would be part of a sensible industrial strategy, and erecting barriers to any such trade would not be...
I don't really understand that. I've had a bad cold for the last few days which turns out to be Covid. I wouldn't have dreamed of going into work and infecting colleagues, but I'm able to work reasonably well, so I do. Even if I didn't have much work ethic, I'd still feel it was a bit difficult to say "I can't work because I'm sniffling". How does working from home make it MORE likely that I'll take a day off because I feel or claim to feel seedy?
I agree. The Daily Mail's logic is difficult to understand.
It's not.
It's readers are all retirees who want to believe WFH is a skive, because they were never allowed to do it, and they can't get their heads around modern technology, so the paper is giving them what they want to hear.
I was allowed to do it now and again, and it was a skive. But that’s just me.
I work like a trooper at home, just as I do in the office. Even my father - who reads the Daily Mail, and still hasn't adjusted his view of anyone else doing it - commented as such when he stayed with us. I think in the past, because it was rare, you could effectively use it as a semi-free day off but, now, it's a fundamental part of how people work flexibly.
Of course, there are two types: those that diligently work and need minimal/no supervision, and those who try and get away with as little as possible. There are no doubt people mucking around at home who need to be virtually supervised, just as they'd muck around in the office if they weren't directly supervised, and it's important to check in with their progress, and measure their performance, just as you would in the office.
"those that diligently work and need minimal/no supervision, and those who try and get away with as little as possible"
Those two groups exist in the office too
As a boss, I see benefits (to me) from employees WFH: in particular, I can figure out pretty quickly who is pulling their weight.
Against that, it is hard for newer, less experienced staff to get up to speed.
Yes, exactly- working from home makes no difference to employee performance per say.
You are right it's harder for newer and younger staff to get up to speed. That's why I have "anchor days" and go in at least 2 days a week.
Though it doesn't appear at that link, when the BBC reported it yesterday, they added that WFH appeared to have increased overall productivity, despite the reported problems.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
The difference in policy seems to be that the conservatives will ban all development on the green belt, whereas labour will enable a review of it.
But to give you an sense of how removed from reality this whole debate is - even under the current arrangements large housing estates are regularly approved by Council's and planning Inspectors on green fields in the green belt, against massive local opposition.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
It took decades to rebuild the UK car industry after the 1970s. We're quite likely to see a repeat of that.
The PB Brexit Brain Trust, Car Industry Sub-committee, assured us there would be no adverse impact on UK car manufacture...
Project Fear !!!
I must confess, I suggested post- Brexit Mini production would move slowly but surely to Antwerp and Hungary at the expense of Cowley, I was wrong. Work is in hand to sub contract production to China at the expense of Cowley.
Electric Minis. BMW has three car plants in China already and makes over 750,000 cars a year there.
This ties in with the comments from Vauxhall where the concern appears to be about batteries.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
Not necessaily wrong hough if your companies have a policy of low investment, cheap labour and closing down operations because the brits are easisest to sack whats in it for the country ?,
If only Boris was in charge of a government that could have made it more difficult to sack people and tackle those other issues, he could have done something about it.
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
The pub is still open, but people don't drive to the pub and drive home any more.
A counter example perhaps is the cricket club in Bath. The large car park now has a block of flats above it, but the car park is still useable.
The strange hatred of remote working some have (as a general concept rather than personally, I appreciate it doesn't work for everyone) is bizarre. And the lazy/skiving line is one of the most easily debunked 'arguments' I've ever encountered.
Set someone working from home a certain task to do. If they do it, they're working, because they've produced work.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
Not necessaily wrong hough if your companies have a policy of low investment, cheap labour and closing down operations because the brits are easisest to sack whats in it for the country ?,
If only Boris was in charge of a government that could have made it more difficult to sack people and tackle those other issues, he could have done something about it.
Boris had no industrial policy either, He simply aped the views of his predecessors from Blair onwards while pretending he wasnt.
Was BritishVolt not going to be a battery factory? That could be revived, Vauxhall could invest, the Government would have to grease the wheels, but we piss money at a lot of less worthwhile things.
Ah yes. Subsidies for British firms funded by British taxpayers to ensure they remain competitive. Very good. Very Conservative.
If you're really 4 posts in, get some manners. If you're a pathetic returnee, get a life.
What a ridiculous post. You're confusing 'calling out an inconvenient truth' for 'bad manners'.
NC has been trending Republican for a while. That could now be sharply reversed. Though in the meantime congressional boundaries are going to be even more heavily gerrymandered.
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
The pub is still open, but people don't drive to the pub and drive home any more.
A counter example perhaps is the cricket club in Bath. The large car park now has a block of flats above it, but the car park is still useable.
Ah. I misunderstood. Not practical outside of town. I have only one pub within walking distance (or did). I have become frustrated by how pubs have turned into restaurants. I'm not against food in pubs, particularly as I often eat when going to one, but several around me have stopped being pubs entirely to the point where you feel you have to ask if you can just have a drink. Market forces I guess.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
The difference in policy seems to be that the conservatives will ban all development on the green belt, whereas labour will enable a review of it.
But to give you an sense of how removed from reality this whole debate is - even under the current arrangements large housing estates are regularly approved by Council's and planning Inspectors on green fields in the green belt, against massive local opposition.
It is quite amusing how the conservative party can get away with their claim to be 'protecting' the green belt.
The "developers charter" - the National Planning Policy Framework - allows developers like this to build what they like when the local authority is not building enough houses to hit the government-mandated target.
Developer gets planning permission to build a load of houses. It then doesn't build them, and puts in an application to build the "Fuck You Meadows" development it really makes money off. Council says no, developer appeals, and because the council isn't building enough houses (because the developer isn't yet building ones it has permission for), the developer wins. A short while later the green spot is bulldozed and Fuck You Meadows starts to go up, with as little money spent by the developer as possible.
This happens literally everywhere. The only way to stop developers building more houses is to let developers build more houses, and unless they actually build the ones you have allowed them to build, then Fuck You Meadows is coming.
In my old neck of the woods we had one development where the council, the Tory MP and the Secretary of State were all against it. The houses were built regardless...
In the days that I worked from home, I found it much better, and more productive, to get up very early. I could get a considerable amount of work done before the telephone calls (no emails in those days). 6am to 9am, even allowing for breakfast, I could finish all yesterdays correspondence and start on today’s!
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
In the days that I worked from home, I found it much better, and more productive, to get up very early. I could get a considerable amount of work done before the telephone calls (no emails in those days). 6am to 9am, even allowing for breakfast, I could finish all yesterdays correspondence and start on today’s!
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
A propos of nothing, James Cleverley is really the only decent choice the Tories have for leader if they lose the next election. He is not perfect, far from it, but he is a pragmatist who gives strong indications of living in the real world. If he stands and wins it would be a strong sign that the Tories are determined to be a serious party once more. If it's Braverman or Badenoch, Labour and the LibDems will be delighted.
It won't be any of those, most likely as I have said before it will be Steve Barclay
A propos of nothing, James Cleverley is really the only decent choice the Tories have for leader if they lose the next election. He is not perfect, far from it, but he is a pragmatist who gives strong indications of living in the real world. If he stands and wins it would be a strong sign that the Tories are determined to be a serious party once more. If it's Braverman or Badenoch, Labour and the LibDems will be delighted.
It won't be any of those, most likely as I have said before it will be Steve Barclay
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
Conservative leaders fail in one of two ways. Either they resist the demands of their most fanatical MPs or they don’t. Ignoring the zealots provokes rebellion, making the party unmanageable. Indulging them leads to policies that are unworkable.
Rishi Sunak is combining both mistakes. The prime minister is giving the right of his party most of what it wants, which is not enough. Everything would not be enough.
Britain has left the European Union on terms more drastic than anything promised by the leave campaign, but the demand for separation is unsatisfied. Euroscepticism is an itch that spreads faster than every effort to scratch it.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Why? Do you think Brexit has worked out well? The frustration of the disaster is natural.
A propos of nothing, James Cleverley is really the only decent choice the Tories have for leader if they lose the next election. He is not perfect, far from it, but he is a pragmatist who gives strong indications of living in the real world. If he stands and wins it would be a strong sign that the Tories are determined to be a serious party once more. If it's Braverman or Badenoch, Labour and the LibDems will be delighted.
It won't be any of those, most likely as I have said before it will be Steve Barclay
He’s not making a very good job of the NHS!
A track record of making a good job of anything doesn't seem to be in the essentials list for the job description of Tory leader!
A propos of nothing, James Cleverley is really the only decent choice the Tories have for leader if they lose the next election. He is not perfect, far from it, but he is a pragmatist who gives strong indications of living in the real world. If he stands and wins it would be a strong sign that the Tories are determined to be a serious party once more. If it's Braverman or Badenoch, Labour and the LibDems will be delighted.
It won't be any of those, most likely as I have said before it will be Steve Barclay
He’s not making a very good job of the NHS!
He is doing as well as he can considering all the strikes. Certainly no worse than Starmer did at the CPS
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
Humza Yousaf says the SNP will "rely on our grassroots membership" to raise funds for a second independence referendum campaign.
"I've no doubt that our members will dig deep," he tells @BBCr4today
He is even dumber than he appears , who would give them a brass farthing given they stole the last £600K. SNP will be taken out of the indepoendence movement unless the whole rotten lot running it are chucked out on their arses. There will be no advance on Independence by SNP as it stands, they are merely hanging on in the gravy train as long as they can. When they get a doing in Westminster elections they will perhaps realise their ponzi schemes are over.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
In Lib/Lab/Green Godalming (south of Guildford) we proposed to build housing on part of a very central car park, and replace the lost spaces with a multi-storey. I thought it was a no-brainer - lots of nice new homes in walking distance of the shops and the river, and what can be more brownfield than a car park?
Wrong. The nearly moribund local Tories roused themselves to a spectacular campaign. "SAVE OUR CAR PARK" letters to every home. Jeremy Hunt weighed in. Tories stood on the High Street collecting signatures. The clear (false) impression was that we were reducing the number of parking spaces. Several high street shops complained that they'd lose custom as a result (whereas in fact they'd have had more local custom), so the Tories could add a second string to the bow: "SAVE OUR HIGH STREET". As the consultation proceeded, we found "No" votes outweighing the "yes" votes by 10-1.
We surrendered, and the houses won't be built. It didn't do the Tories any strategic good in this month's election - they lost all but two seats on the Town Council, making them the 4th largest party. But they could console themselves by saying truthfully that they'd fought a very effective single-issue campaign.
I still think it was an excellent idea, foiled by unscrupulous opposition. But it's an example of how people react against change.
The difference in policy seems to be that the conservatives will ban all development on the green belt, whereas labour will enable a review of it.
But to give you an sense of how removed from reality this whole debate is - even under the current arrangements large housing estates are regularly approved by Council's and planning Inspectors on green fields in the green belt, against massive local opposition.
It is quite amusing how the conservative party can get away with their claim to be 'protecting' the green belt.
The whole idea of a green belt is nuts unless your population is static. With a rapidly growing population you can't realistically simply cram more and more people into the same space. Now we shouldn't build everywhere without reason, but we do need to allow our towns and cities to grow, rather than stick to boundaries from an era when there was 20 million fewer people living in the UK. I hope Starmer is bold enough to really tackle this issue.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
Grass might be cheaper than some of our staple crops. Perhaps one of the supermarkets should try it?
Otherwise its the usual "Covid and Ukraine" excuse because those things only impacted the UK and don't look at any other economy.
That is from an article from 3 years ago and if Yes can't even win young Scots again like it did in 2014 then it has no chance
Will be even higher by now.
Doubtful. People tend not to consider the fundamentals nearly enough on questions like independence and there will be a substantial drift from "Yes" to "No" of voters who prefer Der Størmer to Useless.
A propos of nothing, James Cleverley is really the only decent choice the Tories have for leader if they lose the next election. He is not perfect, far from it, but he is a pragmatist who gives strong indications of living in the real world. If he stands and wins it would be a strong sign that the Tories are determined to be a serious party once more. If it's Braverman or Badenoch, Labour and the LibDems will be delighted.
It won't be any of those, most likely as I have said before it will be Steve Barclay
He’s not making a very good job of the NHS!
He is doing as well as he can considering all the strikes. Certainly no worse than Starmer did at the CPS
He doesn’t seem to be really trying to solve the strikers grievances.
"and c) ‘changing the fauna’, that is policies aiming to further specific sectors or firms, which is often referred to as a ‘picking the winner policy".
Humza Yousaf says the SNP will "rely on our grassroots membership" to raise funds for a second independence referendum campaign.
"I've no doubt that our members will dig deep," he tells @BBCr4today
"These motor homes don't come cheap" said Mr Yousaf.
Interesting to see who really owns and used it and if they were charged for the parking space among many other things like who ran the SNP Amazon accounts.
Humza Yousaf says the SNP will "rely on our grassroots membership" to raise funds for a second independence referendum campaign.
"I've no doubt that our members will dig deep," he tells @BBCr4today
He is even dumber than he appears , who would give them a brass farthing given they stole the last £600K. SNP will be taken out of the indepoendence movement unless the whole rotten lot running it are chucked out on their arses. There will be no advance on Independence by SNP as it stands, they are merely hanging on in the gravy train as long as they can. When they get a doing in Westminster elections they will perhaps realise their ponzi schemes are over.
How will Independence proceed if not with the SNP? Genuinely interested.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
There's something quiet poetic about "eating grass on the sunlit uplands".
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
Grass might be cheaper than some of our staple crops. Perhaps one of the supermarkets should try it?
Otherwise its the usual "Covid and Ukraine" excuse because those things only impacted the UK and don't look at any other economy.
I look at all the major economies and they are all suffering the impact too. Germany's heading in to a recession, France is struggling made worse by pension reform. For the left Brexit is the new Thatcher something to whinge about even though the world has moved on and we have different problems.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
In Lib/Lab/Green Godalming (south of Guildford) we proposed to build housing on part of a very central car park, and replace the lost spaces with a multi-storey. I thought it was a no-brainer - lots of nice new homes in walking distance of the shops and the river, and what can be more brownfield than a car park?
Wrong. The nearly moribund local Tories roused themselves to a spectacular campaign. "SAVE OUR CAR PARK" letters to every home. Jeremy Hunt weighed in. Tories stood on the High Street collecting signatures. The clear (false) impression was that we were reducing the number of parking spaces. Several high street shops complained that they'd lose custom as a result (whereas in fact they'd have had more local custom), so the Tories could add a second string to the bow: "SAVE OUR HIGH STREET". As the consultation proceeded, we found "No" votes outweighing the "yes" votes by 10-1.
We surrendered, and the houses won't be built. It didn't do the Tories any strategic good in this month's election - they lost all but two seats on the Town Council, making them the 4th largest party. But they could console themselves by saying truthfully that they'd fought a very effective single-issue campaign.
I still think it was an excellent idea, foiled by unscrupulous opposition. But it's an example of how people react against change.
The whole parking thing is an example of thick-eared British refusal to learn from other counties. We set up so many false dichotomies in this country, rather like the Americans. Either do things the (inefficient) way we've always done them, or go 180 degrees to some imagined strawman socialist/fascist dystopia, without stopping along the way to consider the many effective ways our close European neighbours have done things for years.
Visit any reasonable sized French, Belgian, German or Swiss town in your car and you'll notice entrance signs to very nicely appointed, conveniently sited underground car parks. Often multiple levels, secure and with nice colour coding and non-urinous lifts to the surface. They are usually on the edge of a central traffic-limited zone (which incidentally will be full of pleasant narrow streets that are mainly pedestrian but allow the occasional resident to drive through, rather than windswept boulevards of poundland and charity shops with fast food wrappers drifting in the breeze). And the parking will of course be a fraction of the cost of a bog standard UK pay and display.
But we don't consider the pretty obvious solution of underground parking do we, except in private waterfront newbuilds in East London. No, we pose a choice between vast concrete savannas of grazing SUVs, or an absolute ban on vehicles and a park and ride 10 miles out of town.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
Still in 2016 I see. Two campaigns who lied though their teeth and you believed them both.
Humza Yousaf says the SNP will "rely on our grassroots membership" to raise funds for a second independence referendum campaign.
"I've no doubt that our members will dig deep," he tells @BBCr4today
He is even dumber than he appears , who would give them a brass farthing given they stole the last £600K. SNP will be taken out of the indepoendence movement unless the whole rotten lot running it are chucked out on their arses. There will be no advance on Independence by SNP as it stands, they are merely hanging on in the gravy train as long as they can. When they get a doing in Westminster elections they will perhaps realise their ponzi schemes are over.
How will Independence proceed if not with the SNP? Genuinely interested.
No expert but most are down to people demanding it and politicians having to follow, so like devolution it was peoples constitutional conventions that forced the issue. As we see once parties are taken over by egoists carpetbaggers their only interest is filling their own pockets. It will certainly not proceed by SNP in present guise , so my expectation is they will either change or wither and die and other independence parties will emerge and will take up the slack.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
There's something quiet poetic about "eating grass on the sunlit uplands".
Perfect for a nice May morning.
Our grass is out of control thanks to No Mow May, plenty to chow down on if the Brexit dividend keeps failing to materialise. A lovely May morning to be WFH in the garden office, looking out at the roses and poppies and the last of the tulips and listening to the birds singing in sunny SE London.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
Grass might be cheaper than some of our staple crops. Perhaps one of the supermarkets should try it?
Otherwise its the usual "Covid and Ukraine" excuse because those things only impacted the UK and don't look at any other economy.
I look at all the major economies and they are all suffering the impact too. Germany's heading in to a recession, France is struggling made worse by pension reform. For the left Brexit is the new Thatcher something to whinge about even though the world has moved on and we have different problems.
The world has moved on, leaving us behind. Indeed we do have different problems...
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
The difference in policy seems to be that the conservatives will ban all development on the green belt, whereas labour will enable a review of it.
But to give you an sense of how removed from reality this whole debate is - even under the current arrangements large housing estates are regularly approved by Council's and planning Inspectors on green fields in the green belt, against massive local opposition.
It is quite amusing how the conservative party can get away with their claim to be 'protecting' the green belt.
The "developers charter" - the National Planning Policy Framework - allows developers like this to build what they like when the local authority is not building enough houses to hit the government-mandated target.
Developer gets planning permission to build a load of houses. It then doesn't build them, and puts in an application to build the "Fuck You Meadows" development it really makes money off. Council says no, developer appeals, and because the council isn't building enough houses (because the developer isn't yet building ones it has permission for), the developer wins. A short while later the green spot is bulldozed and Fuck You Meadows starts to go up, with as little money spent by the developer as possible.
This happens literally everywhere. The only way to stop developers building more houses is to let developers build more houses, and unless they actually build the ones you have allowed them to build, then Fuck You Meadows is coming.
In my old neck of the woods we had one development where the council, the Tory MP and the Secretary of State were all against it. The houses were built regardless...
This is spot on. We see it all the time. As of the end of last year in England there were 1 million plots with planning permission where no works have commenced.
Was BritishVolt not going to be a battery factory? That could be revived, Vauxhall could invest, the Government would have to grease the wheels, but we piss money at a lot of less worthwhile things.
Ah yes. Subsidies for British firms funded by British taxpayers to ensure they remain competitive. Very good. Very Conservative.
The poster in question is always bemoaning the post-Truss declinism of the current government, yet he is now endorsing the consummate 1970s declinism of 'picking winners', so beloved of Harold Wilson and Sunny Jim. The British Right is in intellectual free-fall.
The thing is, industrial policy has worked in Germany for many decades. Industrial strategy is also about long-term invesment as much as "picking winners", which we have been singularly awful at.
It has to be said certain City interests have always been keen to the raise this issue of 1970's industrial failure ( also linked to feudal management and obstreperous Unions ) because it obscures this other issue of short-term investment, as well as an excessively laissez-faire approach to key strategic national interests, over the last 30 years, up to and including issues like nuclear power generation, and to an extent unmatched almost anywhere else in the Western world.
It is an open question as to whether it was industrial policy as is commonly understood (i.e. picking and favouring winning sectors and companies and protecting them) that worked in Germany, or microeconomic policy more broadly, such as an excellent education and apprenticeship system, good infrastructure, more pro-growth planning laws than here and macroeconomic policy that emphasised low inflation. (Also of course cheap Russian gas from the 80s until last year).
I'd give the latter factors much more weight, and I haven't worked in the City in quite a few years.
Picking winners does seem like a Volte face is economic policy!
Was BritishVolt not going to be a battery factory? That could be revived, Vauxhall could invest, the Government would have to grease the wheels, but we piss money at a lot of less worthwhile things.
Ah yes. Subsidies for British firms funded by British taxpayers to ensure they remain competitive. Very good. Very Conservative.
The poster in question is always bemoaning the post-Truss declinism of the current government, yet he is now endorsing the consummate 1970s declinism of 'picking winners', so beloved of Harold Wilson and Sunny Jim. The British Right is in intellectual free-fall.
The thing is, industrial policy has worked in Germany for many decades. Industrial strategy is also about long-term invesment as much as "picking winners", which we have been singularly awful at.
It has to be said certain City interests have always been keen to the raise this issue of 1970's industrial failure ( also linked to feudal management and obstreperous Unions ) because it obscures this other issue of short-term investment, as well as an excessively laissez-faire approach to key strategic national interests, over the last 30 years, up to and including issues like nuclear power generation, and to an extent unmatched almost anywhere else in the Western world.
It is an open question as to whether it was industrial policy as is commonly understood (i.e. picking and favouring winning sectors and companies and protecting them) that worked in Germany, or microeconomic policy more broadly, such as an excellent education and apprenticeship system, good infrastructure, more pro-growth planning laws than here and macroeconomic policy that emphasised low inflation. (Also of course cheap Russian gas from the 80s until last year).
I'd give the latter factors much more weight, and I haven't worked in the City in quite a few years.
Absolutely. Industrial policy does not mean 'picking winners'. That's a nonsense argument which dates back to the nonsense industrial policies of the Labour governments of the 1970s.
Germany doesn't, generally, pick winners.
The closest recently I can think of was Merkel pushing the Tesla factory near Berlin.
This was seen in large chucks of the German motor industry as putting on a particularly nasty pair of brass knuckles, punching them in the gut, all while singing "How Do You Like Me Now" by The Heavy.
It's certainly had an effect - on a recent visit to Hamburg, 1 in 4 taxis was a Tesla 3. The rest were the usual big, slightly old Mercs.
The German car industry is, like the UK based industry, wanting to avoid investment in battery plants. It's not their thing, they want to outsource it to China.
The problem is that it involves lots of investment, smallish margins, its hard work to manage and keep up with. Not much time for trebles in the boardroom, when you are doing that.
The fashion for building mass battery factories in the developed world was started by a certain business man (not named for trigger value). He was described as insane for doing so. But it is a big part of why the margins on the vehicles his company sells are so high.
My suggestion on this was to offer a bounty per battery cell produced in the UK. Percentage of max bounty based on the value added in the UK.
The big advantage of this approach is that it requires no money down. The factories will take 5-10 years to build. The government will be paying out a decade from now.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
Still in 2016 I see. Two campaigns who lied though their teeth and you believed them both.
I can see why the bus won.
Ha ha. For what it's worth I didn't really believe either campaign, but being an economist who does economic forecasting for a living it was pretty obvious to me that Brexit would make the UK poorer, and so it has transpired.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
Grass might be cheaper than some of our staple crops. Perhaps one of the supermarkets should try it?
Otherwise its the usual "Covid and Ukraine" excuse because those things only impacted the UK and don't look at any other economy.
I look at all the major economies and they are all suffering the impact too. Germany's heading in to a recession, France is struggling made worse by pension reform. For the left Brexit is the new Thatcher something to whinge about even though the world has moved on and we have different problems.
The world has moved on, leaving us behind. Indeed we do have different problems...
No youre left behind somewhere in 2016. The UK is is in 2023 and having to deal with the same problems as eveyone else and some of its own.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
Still in 2016 I see. Two campaigns who lied though their teeth and you believed them both.
I can see why the bus won.
Remain ran a piss poor campaign but it didn't particularly lie. I think tbh it understated certain Brexit difficulties if anything.
Leave OTOH ran a strong campaign with plenty of lies.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
In Lib/Lab/Green Godalming (south of Guildford) we proposed to build housing on part of a very central car park, and replace the lost spaces with a multi-storey. I thought it was a no-brainer - lots of nice new homes in walking distance of the shops and the river, and what can be more brownfield than a car park?
Wrong. The nearly moribund local Tories roused themselves to a spectacular campaign. "SAVE OUR CAR PARK" letters to every home. Jeremy Hunt weighed in. Tories stood on the High Street collecting signatures. The clear (false) impression was that we were reducing the number of parking spaces. Several high street shops complained that they'd lose custom as a result (whereas in fact they'd have had more local custom), so the Tories could add a second string to the bow: "SAVE OUR HIGH STREET". As the consultation proceeded, we found "No" votes outweighing the "yes" votes by 10-1.
We surrendered, and the houses won't be built. It didn't do the Tories any strategic good in this month's election - they lost all but two seats on the Town Council, making them the 4th largest party. But they could console themselves by saying truthfully that they'd fought a very effective single-issue campaign.
I still think it was an excellent idea, foiled by unscrupulous opposition. But it's an example of how people react against change.
The whole parking thing is an example of thick-eared British refusal to learn from other counties. We set up so many false dichotomies in this country, rather like the Americans. Either do things the (inefficient) way we've always done them, or go 180 degrees to some imagined strawman socialist/fascist dystopia, without stopping along the way to consider the many effective ways our close European neighbours have done things for years.
40,000 upticks for this, and it's also part of the nettle Starmer needs to grasp. Blair was too wedded to the idea, from the left, that anything to do with postwar industrial policy was "dinosaur", and, from the right, sometimes that anything culturally ambitious or difficult was "old Britain".
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
Still in 2016 I see. Two campaigns who lied though their teeth and you believed them both.
I can see why the bus won.
Ha ha. For what it's worth I didn't really believe either campaign, but being an economist who does economic forecasting for a living it was pretty obvious to me that Brexit would make the UK poorer, and so it has transpired.
why not go out and get a real job , economists are only ever in the situation the bulk of their forecasts are wrong,
That is from an article from 3 years ago and if Yes can't even win young Scots again like it did in 2014 then it has no chance
Will be even higher by now.
Doubtful. People tend not to consider the fundamentals nearly enough on questions like independence and there will be a substantial drift from "Yes" to "No" of voters who prefer Der Størmer to Useless.
If that substantial shift is going to happen there’s no sign of it yet, indeed the current meme among hacks is that Indy support is ‘decoupling’ from support for the SNP. Of course the Tories would publicly execute several dozen MPs to be on 38% (the SNP Westminster number in the latest Scotland only poll).
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
There's something quiet poetic about "eating grass on the sunlit uplands".
Perfect for a nice May morning.
Our grass is out of control thanks to No Mow May, plenty to chow down on if the Brexit dividend keeps failing to materialise. A lovely May morning to be WFH in the garden office, looking out at the roses and poppies and the last of the tulips and listening to the birds singing in sunny SE London.
No Mow May results in No Lawn June and July. Takes an age to recover. There are better ways to help wildlife than hope a bit of clover pops up for a month. (Spoiler: it probably won't...)
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
Still in 2016 I see. Two campaigns who lied though their teeth and you believed them both.
I can see why the bus won.
Ha ha. For what it's worth I didn't really believe either campaign, but being an economist who does economic forecasting for a living it was pretty obvious to me that Brexit would make the UK poorer, and so it has transpired.
why not go out and get a real job , economists are only ever in the situation the bulk of their forecasts are wrong,
I'll stick with my job thanks, it may not be "real" but the money I get for advising folk who manage over $20bn of assets certainly is.
Was BritishVolt not going to be a battery factory? That could be revived, Vauxhall could invest, the Government would have to grease the wheels, but we piss money at a lot of less worthwhile things.
Ah yes. Subsidies for British firms funded by British taxpayers to ensure they remain competitive. Very good. Very Conservative.
The poster in question is always bemoaning the post-Truss declinism of the current government, yet he is now endorsing the consummate 1970s declinism of 'picking winners', so beloved of Harold Wilson and Sunny Jim. The British Right is in intellectual free-fall.
The thing is, industrial policy has worked in Germany for many decades. Industrial strategy is also about long-term invesment as much as "picking winners", which we have been singularly awful at.
It has to be said certain City interests have always been keen to the raise this issue of 1970's industrial failure ( also linked to feudal management and obstreperous Unions ) because it obscures this other issue of short-term investment, as well as an excessively laissez-faire approach to key strategic national interests, over the last 30 years, up to and including issues like nuclear power generation, and to an extent unmatched almost anywhere else in the Western world.
It is an open question as to whether it was industrial policy as is commonly understood (i.e. picking and favouring winning sectors and companies and protecting them) that worked in Germany, or microeconomic policy more broadly, such as an excellent education and apprenticeship system, good infrastructure, more pro-growth planning laws than here and macroeconomic policy that emphasised low inflation. (Also of course cheap Russian gas from the 80s until last year).
I'd give the latter factors much more weight, and I haven't worked in the City in quite a few years.
Absolutely. Industrial policy does not mean 'picking winners'. That's a nonsense argument which dates back to the nonsense industrial policies of the Labour governments of the 1970s.
Germany doesn't, generally, pick winners.
The closest recently I can think of was Merkel pushing the Tesla factory near Berlin.
This was seen in large chucks of the German motor industry as putting on a particularly nasty pair of brass knuckles, punching them in the gut, all while singing "How Do You Like Me Now" by The Heavy.
It's certainly had an effect - on a recent visit to Hamburg, 1 in 4 taxis was a Tesla 3. The rest were the usual big, slightly old Mercs.
The German car industry is, like the UK based industry, wanting to avoid investment in battery plants. It's not their thing, they want to outsource it to China.
The problem is that it involves lots of investment, smallish margins, its hard work to manage and keep up with. Not much time for trebles in the boardroom, when you are doing that.
The fashion for building mass battery factories in the developed world was started by a certain business man (not named for trigger value). He was described as insane for doing so. But it is a big part of why the margins on the vehicles his company sells are so high.
My suggestion on this was to offer a bounty per battery cell produced in the UK. Percentage of max bounty based on the value added in the UK.
The big advantage of this approach is that it requires no money down. The factories will take 5-10 years to build. The government will be paying out a decade from now.
"The fashion for building mass battery factories in the developed world was started by a certain business man (not named for trigger value)"
A plant actually built and largely financed by Panasonic, and which used Panasonic tech. ...
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
There's something quiet poetic about "eating grass on the sunlit uplands".
Perfect for a nice May morning.
Our grass is out of control thanks to No Mow May, plenty to chow down on if the Brexit dividend keeps failing to materialise. A lovely May morning to be WFH in the garden office, looking out at the roses and poppies and the last of the tulips and listening to the birds singing in sunny SE London.
No Mow May results in No Lawn June and July. Takes an age to recover. There are better ways to help wildlife than hope a bit of clover pops up for a month. (Spoiler: it probably won't...)
Even as I wrote it I knew that someone on PB would disapprove of No Mow May.
We dont have an industrial policy so nobody fights our corner for jobs and investment.
BoZo had an industrial policy.
"Fuck business" as I recall
For once Bozo was telling the truth ! And the Brexiters go to economist Minford said Brexit would decimate manufacturing and agriculture so another correct prediction!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
hmmm
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
Remainers were on the right side of history! Brexit is an unmitigated disaster , even its chief cheerleader Farage said it has failed!
LOL oh really
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
How it started: "sunlit uplands", "we hold all the cards" How it's going: "are we all eating grass?" 😂
Still in 2016 I see. Two campaigns who lied though their teeth and you believed them both.
I can see why the bus won.
Ha ha. For what it's worth I didn't really believe either campaign, but being an economist who does economic forecasting for a living it was pretty obvious to me that Brexit would make the UK poorer, and so it has transpired.
why not go out and get a real job , economists are only ever in the situation the bulk of their forecasts are wrong,
I'll stick with my job thanks, it may not be "real" but the money I get for advising folk who manage over $20bn of assets certainly is.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
In Lib/Lab/Green Godalming (south of Guildford) we proposed to build housing on part of a very central car park, and replace the lost spaces with a multi-storey. I thought it was a no-brainer - lots of nice new homes in walking distance of the shops and the river, and what can be more brownfield than a car park?
Wrong. The nearly moribund local Tories roused themselves to a spectacular campaign. "SAVE OUR CAR PARK" letters to every home. Jeremy Hunt weighed in. Tories stood on the High Street collecting signatures. The clear (false) impression was that we were reducing the number of parking spaces. Several high street shops complained that they'd lose custom as a result (whereas in fact they'd have had more local custom), so the Tories could add a second string to the bow: "SAVE OUR HIGH STREET". As the consultation proceeded, we found "No" votes outweighing the "yes" votes by 10-1.
We surrendered, and the houses won't be built. It didn't do the Tories any strategic good in this month's election - they lost all but two seats on the Town Council, making them the 4th largest party. But they could console themselves by saying truthfully that they'd fought a very effective single-issue campaign.
I still think it was an excellent idea, foiled by unscrupulous opposition. But it's an example of how people react against change.
The whole parking thing is an example of thick-eared British refusal to learn from other counties. We set up so many false dichotomies in this country, rather like the Americans. Either do things the (inefficient) way we've always done them, or go 180 degrees to some imagined strawman socialist/fascist dystopia, without stopping along the way to consider the many effective ways our close European neighbours have done things for years.
Visit any reasonable sized French, Belgian, German or Swiss town in your car and you'll notice entrance signs to very nicely appointed, conveniently sited underground car parks. Often multiple levels, secure and with nice colour coding and non-urinous lifts to the surface. They are usually on the edge of a central traffic-limited zone (which incidentally will be full of pleasant narrow streets that are mainly pedestrian but allow the occasional resident to drive through, rather than windswept boulevards of poundland and charity shops with fast food wrappers drifting in the breeze). And the parking will of course be a fraction of the cost of a bog standard UK pay and display.
But we don't consider the pretty obvious solution of underground parking do we, except in private waterfront newbuilds in East London. No, we pose a choice between vast concrete savannas of grazing SUVs, or an absolute ban on vehicles and a park and ride 10 miles out of town.
I agree with this, both in terms of sentiment (learning from the rest of the world) and the specifics of car parks. But it is worth pointing out that one of the issues is that building underground for these sorts of projects is very expensive compared to building up and one of the reasons no one does it is because no one is willing to invest the private capital to do it.
Per The Times: "Starmer: I'll build houses on the green belt"
Irrespective of the actual merits, politically is this bold outflanking, or reckless politics?
As per the FT: “A generation and its hopes are being blocked by those who — more often than not — enjoy the secure homes and jobs that they’re denying to others,” Starmer will say.
“Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We’ll bring back local housing targets. We’ll streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we’ll remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
I think it's outflanking the Tories on growth. It'll lose some nimby votes but that's not where most Labour targets are and you need to take on vested interests to move the country forward.
Nice to some Labour policy, and one that is in the right direction.
This feels like an area where there is a big divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
If the interview on BBC 1 is anything to go by he was talking about common sense in decisions. He gave the example of building on a playing field not in the greenbelt but not building on a carpark in the greenbelt. We have exactly that issue around here. Our village was taken out of the greenbelt. Building is rampant without any additional infrastructure to support it, yet on the edge of the village, in the green belt, a street of houses has a gap between 2 houses that can't be built on. It is an obvious building plot, with no other use. Bonkers.
I have noticed recently a number of new build houses on what were previously pub car parks, obviously no longer required in this day and age
Presumably pub turned into accomodation. Shame to lose a pub. Our local has gone into adminstration. Has been closed for a month or so, so far. Hope it opens again and not built on.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
In Lib/Lab/Green Godalming (south of Guildford) we proposed to build housing on part of a very central car park, and replace the lost spaces with a multi-storey. I thought it was a no-brainer - lots of nice new homes in walking distance of the shops and the river, and what can be more brownfield than a car park?
Wrong. The nearly moribund local Tories roused themselves to a spectacular campaign. "SAVE OUR CAR PARK" letters to every home. Jeremy Hunt weighed in. Tories stood on the High Street collecting signatures. The clear (false) impression was that we were reducing the number of parking spaces. Several high street shops complained that they'd lose custom as a result (whereas in fact they'd have had more local custom), so the Tories could add a second string to the bow: "SAVE OUR HIGH STREET". As the consultation proceeded, we found "No" votes outweighing the "yes" votes by 10-1.
We surrendered, and the houses won't be built. It didn't do the Tories any strategic good in this month's election - they lost all but two seats on the Town Council, making them the 4th largest party. But they could console themselves by saying truthfully that they'd fought a very effective single-issue campaign.
I still think it was an excellent idea, foiled by unscrupulous opposition. But it's an example of how people react against change.
The whole parking thing is an example of thick-eared British refusal to learn from other counties. We set up so many false dichotomies in this country, rather like the Americans. Either do things the (inefficient) way we've always done them, or go 180 degrees to some imagined strawman socialist/fascist dystopia, without stopping along the way to consider the many effective ways our close European neighbours have done things for years.
Visit any reasonable sized French, Belgian, German or Swiss town in your car and you'll notice entrance signs to very nicely appointed, conveniently sited underground car parks. Often multiple levels, secure and with nice colour coding and non-urinous lifts to the surface. They are usually on the edge of a central traffic-limited zone (which incidentally will be full of pleasant narrow streets that are mainly pedestrian but allow the occasional resident to drive through, rather than windswept boulevards of poundland and charity shops with fast food wrappers drifting in the breeze). And the parking will of course be a fraction of the cost of a bog standard UK pay and display.
But we don't consider the pretty obvious solution of underground parking do we, except in private waterfront newbuilds in East London. No, we pose a choice between vast concrete savannas of grazing SUVs, or an absolute ban on vehicles and a park and ride 10 miles out of town.
My favourite Park and Ride is Craibstone near Aberdeen Airport. Built for a mere £15m it has zero buses actually calling there. A short distance from the airport it also fails to be cheap / free parking as there is a 36 hour restriction...
Worth a glance. What Matt Goodwin said to the Natcon conference. It has exaggerated populist touches - not a good idea - but as usual lots of stuff amounting to arguments of sorts where it is a mistake for his critics to play the man and not the ball.
Comments
Doing what I do now and for the last twenty five years I realised quickly, as one of the army of self-employed, that Monday was best spent earning cash in front of customers and the appointment making could be completed hands-free on the road and paperwork completed at a motorway services between jobs. I am now older and fatter and I have an office twenty miles from home which I use on a Friday or when I have appointment cancellations. I get distracted there and bang out nonsensical posts on PB from time to time, but if I was home, I'd never get started.
Go for it, I say.
Some of this is down to wages - though there have been big spikes in some sectors due to the labour shortage. Some is down to the shift patterns or the nature of the job. Point is that if locals don't want the gig then someone has to do it.
I blame Simon Cowell and X-Factor culture. In some places we have several generations scarred by post deindustrialisation chronic unemployment. And a telly culture of endless "talent" shows where you don't need to graft you just become a star.
Round here I really don't think anyone cares that much apart from the other side of town which voted Green because the next x,000 houses are over there and the road (northern bypass A1M J59 to A66) that was supposed to provide access isn't being built. Without that infrastructure it's going to be an absolute mare but if it existed I doubt anyone would have really cared.
But the reality is that Britishvolt was a highly dubious project from that start, and government has no industrial strategy whatsoever on electric vehicle manufacturing at a time when every major manufacturer in the world is switching their production.
Brexit made it unattractive for them to invest in the UK; that required a major effort by government rather than token gestures.
It took decades to rebuild the UK car industry after the 1970s. We're quite likely to see a repeat of that.
Productivity growth in the UK sank to its weakest level in a decade, outside of the pandemic period, in the first 3 months of the year: labour productivity, output per hour was 0.6% lower than in the first quarter of 2022, output per worker fell by 0.9%.
https://twitter.com/lindayueh/status/1658724759062958081
NEW: the Britishvolt #gigafactory project has been delayed yet again as the company's Australian owners, Recharge Industries, asks Northumberland County Council to modify a buy-back clause for a second time.
https://twitter.com/tombarton/status/1658532554020909056
Project Fear !!!
"Fuck business" as I recall
Industrial policy does not mean 'picking winners'. That's a nonsense argument which dates back to the nonsense industrial policies of the Labour governments of the 1970s.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65596283.amp
Though it doesn't appear at that link, when the BBC reported it yesterday, they added that WFH appeared to have increased overall productivity, despite the reported problems.
But to give you an sense of how removed from reality this whole debate is - even under the current arrangements large housing estates are regularly approved by Council's and planning Inspectors on green fields in the green belt, against massive local opposition.
https://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/housing-appeal-allowed-in-hertfordshire-green-belt/
It is quite amusing how the conservative party can get away with their claim to be 'protecting' the green belt.
Not proposing building on car parks if they serve a purpose obviously, just the barmy situation that green land not in the greenbelt gets built on and brownfield sites in the greenbelt don't regardless of the specific circumstances.
This ties in with the comments from Vauxhall where the concern appears to be about batteries.
A counter example perhaps is the cricket club in Bath. The large car park now has a block of flats above it, but the car park is still useable.
The strange hatred of remote working some have (as a general concept rather than personally, I appreciate it doesn't work for everyone) is bizarre. And the lazy/skiving line is one of the most easily debunked 'arguments' I've ever encountered.
Set someone working from home a certain task to do. If they do it, they're working, because they've produced work.
....
It's not rocket science.
The state Congress just overrode the governor's veto to impose a ban on abortion after the first trimester.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/16/north-carolina-abortion-ban-july-00097308
That is both controversial and unpopular.
https://chapelboro.com/news/state-government/a-pretty-unpopular-move-tom-jensen-discusses-north-carolinas-abortion-bill
NC has been trending Republican for a while. That could now be sharply reversed. Though in the meantime congressional boundaries are going to be even more heavily gerrymandered.
Developer gets planning permission to build a load of houses. It then doesn't build them, and puts in an application to build the "Fuck You Meadows" development it really makes money off. Council says no, developer appeals, and because the council isn't building enough houses (because the developer isn't yet building ones it has permission for), the developer wins. A short while later the green spot is bulldozed and Fuck You Meadows starts to go up, with as little money spent by the developer as possible.
This happens literally everywhere. The only way to stop developers building more houses is to let developers build more houses, and unless they actually build the ones you have allowed them to build, then Fuck You Meadows is coming.
In my old neck of the woods we had one development where the council, the Tory MP and the Secretary of State were all against it. The houses were built regardless...
In the days that I worked from home, I found it much better, and more productive, to get up very early. I could get a considerable amount of work done before the telephone calls (no emails in those days). 6am to 9am, even allowing for breakfast, I could finish all yesterdays correspondence and start on today’s!
Anyone who still thinks Brexit was a good idea needs to seek help !
More than two-thirds of young Scots now back independence
The shift in favour of the Scottish Yes side is now the most prolonged in polling history.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2020/09/more-than-two-thirds-of-young-scots-now-back-independence
perhaps it the people who cant get over a vote from 7 years ago who need the help. Political PTSD.
@KevinASchofield
Humza Yousaf says the SNP will "rely on our grassroots membership" to raise funds for a second independence referendum campaign.
"I've no doubt that our members will dig deep," he tells @BBCr4today
Rishi Sunak is combining both mistakes. The prime minister is giving the right of his party most of what it wants, which is not enough. Everything would not be enough.
Britain has left the European Union on terms more drastic than anything promised by the leave campaign, but the demand for separation is unsatisfied. Euroscepticism is an itch that spreads faster than every effort to scratch it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/17/tory-rishi-sunak-suella-braverman-hard-right
have we millions of unemployed, has the economy collapsed , are we all eating grass ?
Any impact has been dwarfed by Covid and Putin, we're in a new world get over it,
All that money on driving lessons and now there's nothing to drive.
When they get a doing in Westminster elections they will perhaps realise their ponzi schemes are over.
Wrong. The nearly moribund local Tories roused themselves to a spectacular campaign. "SAVE OUR CAR PARK" letters to every home. Jeremy Hunt weighed in. Tories stood on the High Street collecting signatures. The clear (false) impression was that we were reducing the number of parking spaces. Several high street shops complained that they'd lose custom as a result (whereas in fact they'd have had more local custom), so the Tories could add a second string to the bow: "SAVE OUR HIGH STREET". As the consultation proceeded, we found "No" votes outweighing the "yes" votes by 10-1.
We surrendered, and the houses won't be built. It didn't do the Tories any strategic good in this month's election - they lost all but two seats on the Town Council, making them the 4th largest party. But they could console themselves by saying truthfully that they'd fought a very effective single-issue campaign.
I still think it was an excellent idea, foiled by unscrupulous opposition. But it's an example of how people react against change.
Otherwise its the usual "Covid and Ukraine" excuse because those things only impacted the UK and don't look at any other economy.
And what did Starmer do wrong as DPS? Sorry DPP!
Swedish industrial policy - "picking winners since 1950", as a friend of mine used to say.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137329905_6
"and c) ‘changing the fauna’, that is policies aiming to further specific sectors or firms, which is often referred to as a ‘picking the winner policy".
https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1658734353810071556?s=20
How it's going: "are we all eating grass?"
😂
Perfect for a nice May morning.
Clement Attlee fans please explain.
Visit any reasonable sized French, Belgian, German or Swiss town in your car and you'll notice entrance signs to very nicely appointed, conveniently sited underground car parks. Often multiple levels, secure and with nice colour coding and non-urinous lifts to the surface. They are usually on the edge of a central traffic-limited zone (which incidentally will be full of pleasant narrow streets that are mainly pedestrian but allow the occasional resident to drive through, rather than windswept boulevards of poundland and charity shops with fast food wrappers drifting in the breeze). And the parking will of course be a fraction of the cost of a bog standard UK pay and display.
But we don't consider the pretty obvious solution of underground parking do we, except in private waterfront newbuilds in East London. No, we pose a choice between vast concrete savannas of grazing SUVs, or an absolute ban on vehicles and a park and ride 10 miles out of town.
I can see why the bus won.
As we see once parties are taken over by egoists carpetbaggers their only interest is filling their own pockets.
It will certainly not proceed by SNP in present guise , so my expectation is they will either change or wither and die and other independence parties will emerge and will take up the slack.
The closest recently I can think of was Merkel pushing the Tesla factory near Berlin.
This was seen in large chucks of the German motor industry as putting on a particularly nasty pair of brass knuckles, punching them in the gut, all while singing "How Do You Like Me Now" by The Heavy.
It's certainly had an effect - on a recent visit to Hamburg, 1 in 4 taxis was a Tesla 3. The rest were the usual big, slightly old Mercs.
The German car industry is, like the UK based industry, wanting to avoid investment in battery plants. It's not their thing, they want to outsource it to China.
The problem is that it involves lots of investment, smallish margins, its hard work to manage and keep up with. Not much time for trebles in the boardroom, when you are doing that.
The fashion for building mass battery factories in the developed world was started by a certain business man (not named for trigger value). He was described as insane for doing so. But it is a big part of why the margins on the vehicles his company sells are so high.
My suggestion on this was to offer a bounty per battery cell produced in the UK. Percentage of max bounty based on the value added in the UK.
The big advantage of this approach is that it requires no money down. The factories will take 5-10 years to build. The government will be paying out a decade from now.
Leave OTOH ran a strong campaign with plenty of lies.
https://www.whatscotlandthinks.org/questions/how-would-you-vote-in-the-in-a-scottish-independence-referendum-if-held-now-ask/?removed
A plant actually built and largely financed by Panasonic, and which used Panasonic tech. ...
https://mattgoodwin.substack.com/p/what-i-told-natcon-london?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=858965&post_id=121799344&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email