How BoJo can still go on hurting the Tories – politicalbetting.com

Cookie said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Ghedebrav said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Pagan2 said:

williamglenn said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

tlg86 said:

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1673229977595129857

@JohnRentoul
Cooper found 75% said it was “time for a change” in 2009, but only 37% said time for a change to the Tories
Now, 79% say it is “time for a change”; and 37% say time for a change to Labour

Those numbers suggest that if the Lib Dems could find a more credible leader, they could repeat the Cleggasm polling bounce when it comes to the election.

Sadly, that would require a different set of MPs.

They could make Carol Vorderman the leader from outside parliament?

Is Carol Vorderman a lib dem she always came across as sensible

Have you not heard her recently. She has gone all a bit left wing version of Laurence Fox. Everything is a giant conspiracy. Another of the midlife crisis mob along with Fox, Lineker, Vine, Morgan, etc.

She's found a gap in the rentagob market on the left side. She's just using the same tricks but with a different target. It's a grift.

Isn't there already plenty occupying that space? Lineker, Neville, basically every other celebrity on twitter....

The difference being that Vorderman can get herself on TV, in an environment where her optinions carry weight thanks to her reputation.

The few times I heard her recently, that reputation didn't last long as she sounded unhinged. Everything is some secret conspiracy / sleaze that mainstream media won't dare talk about.

Yes, 'Vorderman goes full Icke' wasn't one I had on my 2023 bingo card.

She's different from Lineker. Lineker just puts out highly conventional BBC opinions. He sounds - to my unsympathetic ears - smug and far less clever than he thinks he is. But he doesn't sound unhinged in the way Vorderman increasingly does.

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

Nigelb said:

rottenborough said:

Mary Ilyushina
@maryilyushina
·
7m
Prigozhin is back with an 11-min audio message. Says the reason he marches is because Wagner was forced to disband on July 1s because of Shoigu order to sign contracts. Wagner commanders refused to sign. Thread:


https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1673343223257866241

AI generated transcript.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1673345590535544835

This bit about how the march on Kyiv would have been fine if left to them is pure fantasy - but it might find an audience.
...In 24 hours, we covered the distance that corresponds to the distance from the launch site of Russian troops on February 24, 22 to Kyiv and from the same point to Uzhgorod.

Therefore, if the action on February 24, 22, at the time of the start of the special operation, was carried out by a unit in terms of the level of training, in terms of the level of moral composure and readiness to perform tasks, like the Wagner PMC, then perhaps the special operation would last a day. It is clear that there were other problems, but we showed the level of organization that the Russian army should correspond to. And when on June 23-24 we walked past Russian cities, civilians met us with the flags of Russia and with the emblems and flags of the Wagner PMC...

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

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darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

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darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

darkage said:

rcs1000 said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

eek said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

ManchesterKurt said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ManchesterKurt said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ManchesterKurt said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

StillWaters said:

pigeon said:

Taz said:

Heathener said:

Morning.

The mean Labour lead from the last six national opinion polls is exactly 20%

The mean Conservative vote share is 26%

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

The Tories won’t do themselves any favours overruling independent pay bodies on public sector pay.

We are just likely to see more and more strikes and disruption and not just from the likes of the RMT who are politically motivated.

They're in a complete bind. They'll trot out the wage-price spiral excuse to justify bearing down on public sector pay, but the plain fact is that they're struggling to find politically acceptable cuts to fund extra spending in this area, borrowing is enormous and becoming ever more expensive, and so they're left with either digging their heels in and offering workers peanuts, or raising taxes on their core supporters to pay for more generous rises. There's no violin small enough.

The reality we are reaching the end game for the Blairite/Thatcher-lite model

It used to be chunky public spending and low taxes with the difference funded by clever balance sheet tricks (PFI/securitisation) or straight up borrowing. Wages were kept down by relaxed views on immigration

Cost of borrowing is going up and the markets are twitchy after all that QE

Asset price bubbles have driven a reasonable standard of living beyond the reach of many

Effectively unlimited immigration has resulted in underinvestment in business (low wages partly due to immigration and partly due to tax credits) drove down returns (cost saving) on investment and increased the strain on public services (governments didn’t invest in capacity).

The electorate has been trained to believe the government will always bail them out

We need a grown up conversation. Either taxes have to go up massively or public services need to be completely rethought.

But neither politicians or the electorate are ready to have that conversation.

While much of this is true, it is also the case that other countries have had similar situations to us, and have managed to avoid excessively expensive housing or stagnant business investment.

They therefore cannot be the whole story.

It's almost as if our planning system might be different to theirs.

The largest cost in household budgets is Housing. Not food, not gas, not electricity or anything else it is housing.

A very large proportion of the cost of housing is the cost of land.

And the cost of land with planning permission is inflated over land without.

Resolve one and others follow.

Build new towns (or refurbish old ones) in the frozen north and left-behind regions. It solves the housing problem, levelling up and rebalancing the economy away from an overheated London in one fell swoop.

Not really

There are areas in the run down north with plenty of empty housing, just look at the photo at the top of this article....

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/news-opinion/britain-broken-every-direction-know-27184397

Yes, hence the new town model, even if based on refurbishment, to include attracting new jobs. Rather than dumping grounds for borderline mentally ill drug addicts and thieves.

Why on earth would any company set up in a newly created new town that no doubt has awful connections to anywhere with any sort of existing economy ?

Government subsidies, tax concessions, northern powerhouse rail? Britain has built new towns before; there's nothing new.

NPR won't land until 2045 onwards and will connect Warrington, Manchester and Marsden, no new stops planned, just linking existing populations.

So you want to create new towns, with no links to existing economies and hope that lower taxes will attract businesses there ?

Our London based media's obsession over trains is part of the problem. Over 90% of the UK travels via Road, not Rail, especially in the North.

If you want new towns then new motorway junctions, or better yet new motorways with new junctions is the way to do it quickly. Rail can catch up afterwards.

Not just in the North, in the South away from London it's very possible too. Eg build a new motorway linking Oxford to Cambridge, extended to Bristol and Norwich perhaps, and with a junction approximately every 5 miles. New towns could spring up along that route, and not in or linked to London.

Sorry but new roads don’t solve problems - and it’s probably worth watching c4 to,or row to see Ben Elton comparing rail around London and the rest of the UK.

That sort of timid, self defeating attitude is part of the problem. Of course new roads do solve problems.

I live in a fast growing new town (they do still exist, just not enough of them). We have thousands of homes being built, all of which are getting snapped up. New shops, businesses, industry opening too.

And what is the key new transport infrastructure underpinning this? One new motorway junction, with one new A road.

There's talk we might get a train station in a few years time, I'm not holding my breath, but the new motorway junction? People who get about by road are happy with that. And outside London it's roads, not rail, that truly matters. Of course London is different but WE ARE NOT LONDON.

The problem here is that what you are now making is an argument for planning, which you claim to reject. The reason why everything is working in your development is more likely than not because decades of work went in to the new trunk roads and motorway junctions, negotiated by the Council with Highways England and the government, as well as the co-siting of commercial development and community infrastructure, and finding ways to fund all this, including through Section 106 contributions by developers. That is what planning is and the value that it adds. If you get rid of planning then none of that happens, houses get built but you can't get anywhere, there are crap roads, no shops, infrastructure etc.

You could say ok, why not just zone the land through the plan making process and then have a design code rather than having to go through the pain and delay of needing planning permission. You could well do that and some countries do. The main problem is it makes it harder to go through the first stage of the process (the plan making stage) because you need to be absolutely sure that everything is solved before you can confidently rely on a design code for the purposes of delivery.

A design code is just a delivery mechanism not an alternative to having a planning system. Looking at your example of Japan, my guess is just that they are better at planning because the state is more assertive and organised at building infrastructure. I'd guess the falling prices are more to do with historic deflation than falling demand. But I've never studied the Japanese system in detail so don't feel able to authoritively comment on it.

In summary the problem is not that a planning system exists in the first place, but because the one we have isn't working very well.

Sorry that's not remotely an argument for planning, you could not be more wrong. There isn't time for decades of work as our population levels weren't the same decades ago, and if decades of work are going into it then no wonder everything is so broken as the facts decades ago are not the facts today.

If everything is planned then I'm curious where the new railway station, new schools, new GPs and everything else are. None of them exist. I still am registered at my old GP in my old town, I've not transferred my kids schooling either, and drive across the river to a different town for those.

Organic development works better. If houses are built, but no schools etc then people will vote for what they need. Unsurprisingly at the local elections the local Lib Dem (who got elected) was not campaigning on NIMBYism, but supporting new GPs to built and new schools to be built. Because that's what the new residents need and its not all there yet. Supermarkets have opened etc because businesses like Aldi and ASDA will open branches where their customers are. Thousands of people move into an area, they'll be in like a shot to get a shot at those customers.

The state is bloody useless at planning. Design transportation, sure, then let it organically grow in what's zoned there.

Ok, so you don't think there should be planning, with the exception of road building. There should be no state provision for day to day needs etc - shops, healthcare etc, because this will follow where people choose to build houses because politicians will be elected to make it happen. There would be no public realm, or town centres, just housing and roads, and supermarkets.

This all sounds like a total disaster to me.

No. I think there should be healthcare, and schools etc but it should evolve depending upon what the voters need.

Not spend decades planning what was needed decades ago, but is totally obsolete decades later as the facts have changed so much all your plans were based on faulty assumptions.

The latter is a proven disaster today.

@BartholomewRoberts would welcome your thoughts on this

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/here-s-what-s-missing-everything-no-schools-and-no-services-but-houses-keep-going-up-20221012-p5bp7o.html


" The public primary was the size of a country school and now has 19 demountables. The closest shops were 20 minutes away; if she forgot milk, it was a 40-minute round trip, often in traffic. Trains came hourly, even at the peak. Narrow roads were choked. The hospital repeatedly promised for nearby Rouse Hill didn’t exist, and still doesn’t. Meanwhile, the population grows exponentially."... “They knew we were coming. Where did they think we were going to shop? Where did they think our children would go to school? It comes down to better planning. Stop rushing to get people into these houses.”...

But people moving into those areas say it takes more than a bunch of rapidly constructed houses to create a community. “So here’s what’s missing,” said Angela Van Dyke of the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre and Community Aid Service. “Everything. Public education. Public transport. Good urban design. Livability.”... Michelle Rowland, the Labor federal member for the north-west seat of Greenway (and also the communications minister), said the problem was due to a long-term failure of different levels of government to coordinate. “Developers, basically, in a lot of aspects, they do have free rein,” she said. “The incentive of the developer is to maximise land use to maximise profit. Which is why you have a lot of residents complaining [about] what normally they’d call overdevelopment, but a lot of it is to do with a lack of trees, a lack of environmental controls, houses are close together, streets are narrow.”

Presumably he'd say that given the people exist, that is better to have houses and no schools, than to have neither houses nor schools.

@rcs1000

There is something in that argument , but I don't think that is what he is saying. I think he sees the idea of town planning as being socially destructive and a massive cost with no benefits. The usual libertarian thing. But the contradiction is, that when you go and look at the libertarian societies they hold up as examples they tend to actually be quite well planned, ie Singapore and the USA, there is always an active state authority doing the zoning, brokering the economic development etc. I am pretty sure Japan will come in to this category as well.

It kind of is what I'm saying actually, yes.

As far as zoning etc is concerned, I'm perfectly fine with that. Pick your agricultural, natural and residential zones etc and the let the Council get out of the way of development within residential zones, even if natural/agricultural zones can't be developed. Which incidentally can work with 'green belt' desires, since you don't zone the green belt residential then.

Now of course personally I'd prefer the residential zones to be bigger than they are now, but that's a semi-separate debate.

Beyond that though, I am saying since we have a shortage of 3 million homes today, and we don't have 3 million homes with planning permission let alone under construction, then JFDI applies. Just frigging do it.

Get the homes built. Better to not be homeless.

Once the homes are built, of course better ideally to have commerce, schools etc - but in the mean time better to have a home than no home.

And of course since this is the UK, not Australia or Canada, even if there's no school [yet] within your area there will be schools not very far away. This isn't rural Alberta or Western Australia where your nearest town is 400 km away.

As I said, my kids go to a different school, in a different town, than the one where I live. There is a small primary and secondary school where I live, which kind of used to be a village but is now a new town [the overwhelming majority of houses in this town did not exist in 2010], but they are small and I like my kids school so we're not transferring them. My kids still have places in the school over the river and I drive them there. Oh and if I didn't drive, there are school buses that come down our road to collect kids to take them to where my kids go to school. I'm guessing we're far from unique in crossing the river to get to school, and there's an option via dedicated school buses for those who don't drive.

OK then. Your planning reform is to have residential 'zones' with planning permission granted for 3 million plus new houses. You now seem to be accepting that there is a heavy sacrifice (over and beyond what was identified in the example in linked to above) in terms of infrastructure provision, placemaking etc, but consider it is all necessary to deal with the over-riding housing need. You believe that it can and will all be worked out in some way afterwards.

I think this would be a disaster. It bakes in dependency on the car and the need for continuous expensive upgrades to roads and bridges for generations.
I also think that the JFDI direction will not actually deliver much more housing. Because as I have pointed out before, the housebuilding industry deliver about 100-150 k houses a year and nothing more and all the signs are that they would continue to do this under any new policy.

There would be some SME/self building going on but the industry is small and it is not going to be at any significant scale. It won't seriously come on stream until capacity in the construction industry is massively increased. And on these projects, someone else still has to build and fund the roads, the streetlights, the drains etc.

Prices may fall because of oversupply but they would quickly hit a level where new housebuilding becomes uneconomic in many areas because of build cost inflation. So my best guess is that you would quickly end up with lots of empty plots and a recession.

If you look through the post war history of housebuilding it is very clear that the only time the government delivers 300,000 houses a year is when it builds half of them itself.

Sorry but you've got your own assumptions then have worked backwards from there.

Firstly there's no need for it all to be dependent on the car, in fact the opposite is possible too. If existing residential zones become denser and build up then that can lead to public transport becoming more efficient, not less. Not that I have any objection to the motor vehicle, but I think my proposal if implemented would see places like London seeing building up happening and I wouldn't expect those to be all homes relying upon cars.

Secondly all the evidence from around the planet is that without planning being an insurmountable obstacle is that SME/self-building should happen at a very significant scale. In almost every country with my proposed system, SME/self-builds happen at orders of magnitude more than here.

As far as funding the roads etc is concerned that needs to happen either way, planning or no planning. That's what the tax system is for. We pay our taxes, we need roads and transportation. Politicians need to do their job. If you want to put a tax on new houses that goes to a pot to pay towards new roads, then I have no philosophical objection to that, but we pay our taxes either way.

As far as prices are concerned, too much of the price of new homes currently is planning itself. If that ceases to be the case, then prices can fall without hurting development. If land becomes cheaper, but taxed more [two prongs to this] then land-banking would never happen and people are encouraged to get on with it rather than to dawdle.

Finally its very clear in the history of housebuilding around the planet, that when competition is allowed to flourish and demand is high then people can and do get on with it. The city of Tokyo alone [population 14 million] has consistently delivered more new homes than the entirety of England combined. As a former cheese loving Prime Minister might have said: That. Is. A. Disgrace.

Saying that our current system isn't working, so therefore reform is pointless, rather misses the point don't you think?

Ok. So you are now going to insist that the houses are built more densely to avoid the problem of 'suburban sprawl'.
How is public transport going to work efficiently - Do the authorities put in the transit routes before the zoning or afterwards?
At what point would the authorities consider something like walkways, cycle paths etc? At the point when the land is zoned, or afterwards?
Regarding your comments about much of the cost of new housing being 'planning', this is true to a point, but what about other factors such as 'desirability of location'? Would you agree that the cost of land for housing (and reflected in sale prices) is also influenced by this? For instance, in that article I linked to above, the houses in the suburbs of Sydney were not cheap - the defective planning had not reduced the desirability of the location.


I would agree that the system isn't working that well and needs to be reformed, but that is an altogether different idea from 'getting rid of planning'.

FWIW your ideas are very similar to what the government (via policy exchange) actually proposed in January 2020.

https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Rethinking-the-Planning-System-for-the-21st-Century.pdf

The government then developed this set of reforms off the back of it in a white paper, which I thought were actually pretty good.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/958420/MHCLG-Planning-Consultation.pdf

Unfortunately this work basically went nowhere. The only legacy of it is a set of perplexing reforms to the use classes order, making it difficult for Council's to control changes of use.

No, I'm not going to "insist" that houses are built more densely. What part of it is it that you're struggling to understand, I don't think anyone should insist upon anything, myself included.

Let the owner of the land decide.

Where land is valuable in its own right, rather than because of planning, eg in cities then building up will probably happen not because you or I want it, but because that's the most effective use of land so people will choose to do it.

Transit routes, along with schooling and other public services should evolve over time, you might have an initial idea but it shouldn't ever be ossified. People change and adapt what they use. An area that is bought out by young people may end up becoming embraced by old people - sometimes the same ex-young people who never moved.

We need to evolve over time, not plan something based on the needs of decades ago.

Yes the 2020 reforms were a good idea, didn't go as far as I'd like but a big step in the right direction, its a shame they were dropped.

In the end I think you probably want a different system of planning, not the abolition of planning.

My criticism however is that you are presenting a superficially easy answer ("scrap planning") to a complicated question.

Zoning rather than our current Byzantine planning laws. If land is zoned residential, then let people build whatever they want on it subject to residential regulations, without input from local politicians or NIMBY neighbours.

That doesn't mean a skyscraper of apartments will be built in the middle of national parks though, since skyscrapers won't meet regulations and national parks won't be zoned residential.

Ok zoning, subject to regulations and design codes. Not a bad idea and works in many countries. I struggle to really see how it is that different to outline planning permission or permission in principle. All the same issues would come up that come up at the point when the land was zoned as would be the case in an outline planning application, IE the roads, congestion, drainage, flooding, ecological, social infrastructure, impact on landscape. The delays that people associate with Council bureaucracy are usually actually rooted in a deeper and more pathological problems with the decision making processes of the British state, the legacy of shoddy attempts at privatisation and the aversion to spend public money on the part of government. None of that gets swept away with a new planning system.

The only way you could immediately zone land for 3 million houses is to ignore the real planning consequences of doing so which would then become apparent extremely quickly.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

Nah, Shakespeare was Indian!

tlg86 said:

Cookie said:

Pulpstar said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Motorway service station right now. Absolutely in my element.

Go on, which one?

Watford Gap. Top tier stuff.

Nice one.
You probably know this, but - due to its location in the centre of England - Watford Gap services, then operated by and known as Blue Boar, was a significant location in late 60s rock music and a focus for bands to meet at after their gigs. Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones... there was a misapprehension among followers of the scene less au fait with British transport geography that the Blue Boar was some sort of highly fashionable night spot.
This was, of course, the days before value engineering and economies of scale turned most service stations into functional facsimilies of one another.

Just how did it get named the Watford gap ?

I remember the first time coming across it. Have I really driven that far ? (Driving from Coventry...)

The Watford Gap is a gap in a range of low hills in Northamptonshire, next to the village of Watford. A less famous Watford that its much larger namesake in Hertfordshire, but a perfectly cromulent Watford nonetheless.

When people refer to 'north of the Watford Gap' it makes a lot more sense if you know that the Watford gap is here, not in Hertfordshire.

Canal, then railway, then motorway. Wasn't it an important staging post for changing horses on carriages etc?

Ghedebrav said:

Cookie said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Ghedebrav said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Pagan2 said:

williamglenn said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

tlg86 said:

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1673229977595129857

@JohnRentoul
Cooper found 75% said it was “time for a change” in 2009, but only 37% said time for a change to the Tories
Now, 79% say it is “time for a change”; and 37% say time for a change to Labour

Those numbers suggest that if the Lib Dems could find a more credible leader, they could repeat the Cleggasm polling bounce when it comes to the election.

Sadly, that would require a different set of MPs.

They could make Carol Vorderman the leader from outside parliament?

Is Carol Vorderman a lib dem she always came across as sensible

Have you not heard her recently. She has gone all a bit left wing version of Laurence Fox. Everything is a giant conspiracy. Another of the midlife crisis mob along with Fox, Lineker, Vine, Morgan, etc.

She's found a gap in the rentagob market on the left side. She's just using the same tricks but with a different target. It's a grift.

Isn't there already plenty occupying that space? Lineker, Neville, basically every other celebrity on twitter....

The difference being that Vorderman can get herself on TV, in an environment where her optinions carry weight thanks to her reputation.

The few times I heard her recently, that reputation didn't last long as she sounded unhinged. Everything is some secret conspiracy / sleaze that mainstream media won't dare talk about.

Yes, 'Vorderman goes full Icke' wasn't one I had on my 2023 bingo card.

She's different from Lineker. Lineker just puts out highly conventional BBC opinions. He sounds - to my unsympathetic ears - smug and far less clever than he thinks he is. But he doesn't sound unhinged in the way Vorderman increasingly does.

It's the difference between gobshite and rentagob. I don't seriously think Lineker has plans to make a living off his political outlook. Why would he? He makes proper wedge from football. He's just voicing his views, and ultimately there's nothing new or newsworthy in what he's saying (it was really just a bit of classic late-period Tory shoot-self-in-foot-ism trying to sack him for it).

CV needs to parlay her public persona into ££ to make a living, and she won't do that by giving considered and reasonable opinions. She's got to say mad stuff to attract the eyeballs/ears/clicks.

Cookie said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

I remember reading that if you wanted to hear Shakespearean English, the best place to go would be rural coastal Virginia. For a long time, this part of the world was small and unchanging and relatively isolated and retained the tongue of its settlers; indeed, it was fast paced metropolitan Britain where language moved on. Much of what fusty Brits lament as American neologisms are actually American paleologisms.

Cookie said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

I remember reading that if you wanted to hear Shakespearean English, the best place to go would be rural coastal Virginia. For a long time, this part of the world was small and unchanging and relatively isolated and retained the tongue of its settlers; indeed, it was fast paced metropolitan Britain where language moved on. Much of what fusty Brits lament as American neologisms are actually American paleologisms.

Cookie said:

Ghedebrav said:

Cookie said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Ghedebrav said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Pagan2 said:

williamglenn said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

tlg86 said:

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1673229977595129857

@JohnRentoul
Cooper found 75% said it was “time for a change” in 2009, but only 37% said time for a change to the Tories
Now, 79% say it is “time for a change”; and 37% say time for a change to Labour

Those numbers suggest that if the Lib Dems could find a more credible leader, they could repeat the Cleggasm polling bounce when it comes to the election.

Sadly, that would require a different set of MPs.

They could make Carol Vorderman the leader from outside parliament?

Is Carol Vorderman a lib dem she always came across as sensible

Have you not heard her recently. She has gone all a bit left wing version of Laurence Fox. Everything is a giant conspiracy. Another of the midlife crisis mob along with Fox, Lineker, Vine, Morgan, etc.

She's found a gap in the rentagob market on the left side. She's just using the same tricks but with a different target. It's a grift.

Isn't there already plenty occupying that space? Lineker, Neville, basically every other celebrity on twitter....

The difference being that Vorderman can get herself on TV, in an environment where her optinions carry weight thanks to her reputation.

The few times I heard her recently, that reputation didn't last long as she sounded unhinged. Everything is some secret conspiracy / sleaze that mainstream media won't dare talk about.

Yes, 'Vorderman goes full Icke' wasn't one I had on my 2023 bingo card.

She's different from Lineker. Lineker just puts out highly conventional BBC opinions. He sounds - to my unsympathetic ears - smug and far less clever than he thinks he is. But he doesn't sound unhinged in the way Vorderman increasingly does.

It's the difference between gobshite and rentagob. I don't seriously think Lineker has plans to make a living off his political outlook. Why would he? He makes proper wedge from football. He's just voicing his views, and ultimately there's nothing new or newsworthy in what he's saying (it was really just a bit of classic late-period Tory shoot-self-in-foot-ism trying to sack him for it).

CV needs to parlay her public persona into ££ to make a living, and she won't do that by giving considered and reasonable opinions. She's got to say mad stuff to attract the eyeballs/ears/clicks.

Well I agree with all that and I enjoyed the alliteration.
But surely if you're Carol Vorderman there must be other more dignified ways of making a living?
She's also appearing in some really, really bad adverts for something at the moment (insurance of some sort?)

You'd have thought at her age and given her reasonably successful career she'd be in a position now to ease into a comfortable retirement. I wonder if something has gone seriously awry in the world of Vords.

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Cookie said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

I remember reading that if you wanted to hear Shakespearean English, the best place to go would be rural coastal Virginia. For a long time, this part of the world was small and unchanging and relatively isolated and retained the tongue of its settlers; indeed, it was fast paced metropolitan Britain where language moved on. Much of what fusty Brits lament as American neologisms are actually American paleologisms.

Maybe. However, load of dubious claims along these lines, which interesting have tended to cite denizens of Appalachia (including West Virginia and western VA but NOT eastern VA) as speaking something very akin to Elizabethan English.

Take such claims with large grains of salt. Which is NOT to say there's not (perhaps) a wee bit of there there.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Labour leads by 18%.

Westminster VI (25 June):

Labour 44% (-2)
Conservative 26% (–)
Liberal Democrat 13% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (-1)
Green 5% (-1)
Scottish National Party 3% (–)
Other 3% (+2)

Changes +/- 18 June

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1673360483288752135

Sandpit said:

tlg86 said:

Cookie said:

Pulpstar said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Motorway service station right now. Absolutely in my element.

Go on, which one?

Watford Gap. Top tier stuff.

Nice one.
You probably know this, but - due to its location in the centre of England - Watford Gap services, then operated by and known as Blue Boar, was a significant location in late 60s rock music and a focus for bands to meet at after their gigs. Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones... there was a misapprehension among followers of the scene less au fait with British transport geography that the Blue Boar was some sort of highly fashionable night spot.
This was, of course, the days before value engineering and economies of scale turned most service stations into functional facsimilies of one another.

Just how did it get named the Watford gap ?

I remember the first time coming across it. Have I really driven that far ? (Driving from Coventry...)

The Watford Gap is a gap in a range of low hills in Northamptonshire, next to the village of Watford. A less famous Watford that its much larger namesake in Hertfordshire, but a perfectly cromulent Watford nonetheless.

When people refer to 'north of the Watford Gap' it makes a lot more sense if you know that the Watford gap is here, not in Hertfordshire.

Canal, then railway, then motorway. Wasn't it an important staging post for changing horses on carriages etc?

Yes, on what was the old A1.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Labour leads by 18%.

Westminster VI (25 June):

Labour 44% (-2)
Conservative 26% (–)
Liberal Democrat 13% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (-1)
Green 5% (-1)
Scottish National Party 3% (–)
Other 3% (+2)

Changes +/- 18 June

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1673360483288752135

Sandpit said:

tlg86 said:

Cookie said:

Pulpstar said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

kinabalu said:

Motorway service station right now. Absolutely in my element.

Go on, which one?

Watford Gap. Top tier stuff.

Nice one.
You probably know this, but - due to its location in the centre of England - Watford Gap services, then operated by and known as Blue Boar, was a significant location in late 60s rock music and a focus for bands to meet at after their gigs. Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones... there was a misapprehension among followers of the scene less au fait with British transport geography that the Blue Boar was some sort of highly fashionable night spot.
This was, of course, the days before value engineering and economies of scale turned most service stations into functional facsimilies of one another.

Just how did it get named the Watford gap ?

I remember the first time coming across it. Have I really driven that far ? (Driving from Coventry...)

The Watford Gap is a gap in a range of low hills in Northamptonshire, next to the village of Watford. A less famous Watford that its much larger namesake in Hertfordshire, but a perfectly cromulent Watford nonetheless.

When people refer to 'north of the Watford Gap' it makes a lot more sense if you know that the Watford gap is here, not in Hertfordshire.

Canal, then railway, then motorway. Wasn't it an important staging post for changing horses on carriages etc?

Yes, on what was the old A1.

Jim_Miller said:

Here's a question about names -- and politics: In the US, it is common for newspapers to spell the name of your (current) second party, "Labor". (I think that's wrong since it's a proper name.)

How do your newspapers spell the name of the Australian equivalent? Labor, or Labour?

(As I understand it, the Australian Party was expecting a change in the standard spelling there, to match American practice, when they chose that name. But the rest of the nation didn't go along with them.)

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The statement from Prigozhin isn't too easy for Putin.

He's careful to position himself as not to be publicly disloyal, but virtually the whole message is about positioning himself as an alternative power centre to Putin. We would have done it all better, we showed up problems in security in patchworks, etc.

Priogozhin alternative power center to Mad Vlad?

Perhaps. But he's really more along the lines of another Russian (sorta) sociopath and war criminal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_von_Ungern-Sternberg

Cookie said:

Ghedebrav said:

Cookie said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Sandpit said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Ghedebrav said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Pagan2 said:

williamglenn said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

tlg86 said:

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1673229977595129857

@JohnRentoul
Cooper found 75% said it was “time for a change” in 2009, but only 37% said time for a change to the Tories
Now, 79% say it is “time for a change”; and 37% say time for a change to Labour

Those numbers suggest that if the Lib Dems could find a more credible leader, they could repeat the Cleggasm polling bounce when it comes to the election.

Sadly, that would require a different set of MPs.

They could make Carol Vorderman the leader from outside parliament?

Is Carol Vorderman a lib dem she always came across as sensible

Have you not heard her recently. She has gone all a bit left wing version of Laurence Fox. Everything is a giant conspiracy. Another of the midlife crisis mob along with Fox, Lineker, Vine, Morgan, etc.

She's found a gap in the rentagob market on the left side. She's just using the same tricks but with a different target. It's a grift.

Isn't there already plenty occupying that space? Lineker, Neville, basically every other celebrity on twitter....

The difference being that Vorderman can get herself on TV, in an environment where her optinions carry weight thanks to her reputation.

The few times I heard her recently, that reputation didn't last long as she sounded unhinged. Everything is some secret conspiracy / sleaze that mainstream media won't dare talk about.

Yes, 'Vorderman goes full Icke' wasn't one I had on my 2023 bingo card.

She's different from Lineker. Lineker just puts out highly conventional BBC opinions. He sounds - to my unsympathetic ears - smug and far less clever than he thinks he is. But he doesn't sound unhinged in the way Vorderman increasingly does.

It's the difference between gobshite and rentagob. I don't seriously think Lineker has plans to make a living off his political outlook. Why would he? He makes proper wedge from football. He's just voicing his views, and ultimately there's nothing new or newsworthy in what he's saying (it was really just a bit of classic late-period Tory shoot-self-in-foot-ism trying to sack him for it).

CV needs to parlay her public persona into ££ to make a living, and she won't do that by giving considered and reasonable opinions. She's got to say mad stuff to attract the eyeballs/ears/clicks.

Well I agree with all that and I enjoyed the alliteration.
But surely if you're Carol Vorderman there must be other more dignified ways of making a living?
She's also appearing in some really, really bad adverts for something at the moment (insurance of some sort?)

You'd have thought at her age and given her reasonably successful career she'd be in a position now to ease into a comfortable retirement. I wonder if something has gone seriously awry in the world of Vords.

numbertwelve said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The statement from Prigozhin isn't too easy for Putin.

He's careful to position himself as not to be publicly disloyal, but virtually the whole message is about positioning himself as an alternative power centre to Putin. We would have done it all better, we showed up problems in security in patchworks, etc.

Yes, this betrays the weakness of Putin because Prigozhin isn’t shutting up. He’s not been silenced and he keeps poking the bear.

If he’s going he’s not going quietly. Still feels like the scene is being set for - something - more, whatever that may be.

algarkirk said:

12 years is far too long in this tragic case


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/26/teenager-murdered-newborn-son-herefordshire-jailed-paris-mayo

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Carnyx said:

glw said:

Nigelb said:

Trump takes aim at EV industry during speech to Michigan Republicans
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4067252-trump-takes-aim-at-ev-industry-during-speech-to-michigan-republicans/

Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.

What new word did little Donald learn today?

He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.

Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.

Sandpit said:

algarkirk said:

12 years is far too long in this tragic case


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/26/teenager-murdered-newborn-son-herefordshire-jailed-paris-mayo

A premeditated murder should always carry a life sentence. She knew she was doing something badly wrong.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

algarkirk said:

12 years is far too long in this tragic case


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/26/teenager-murdered-newborn-son-herefordshire-jailed-paris-mayo

After the abortion verdict the other week, it feels like something has changed in the sentencing around cases like this. I don't remember any changes to the law, but it feels like there has been some kind of 'pro-life' shift that is much more punative towards desperate mothers.

Scott_xP said:

@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is twenty-three percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 24% (-3)
Lab 47% (+1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Other 16% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd - 26th June 2023
Sample: 1,089 GB adults
(Changes from 16th - 19th June 2023)

Unpopular said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

algarkirk said:

12 years is far too long in this tragic case


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/26/teenager-murdered-newborn-son-herefordshire-jailed-paris-mayo

After the abortion verdict the other week, it feels like something has changed in the sentencing around cases like this. I don't remember any changes to the law, but it feels like there has been some kind of 'pro-life' shift that is much more punative towards desperate mothers.

Sounds like a tragic case. Obviously the crime requires a stiff sentence, I'm not qualified to say how stiff, but some of the remarks from the Judge, who appears to accept this girl acted out of fear and distress, seem a bit cruel.

That said, I don't think this is a 'pro-life'.

Pagan2 said:

williamglenn said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

tlg86 said:

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1673229977595129857

@JohnRentoul
Cooper found 75% said it was “time for a change” in 2009, but only 37% said time for a change to the Tories
Now, 79% say it is “time for a change”; and 37% say time for a change to Labour

Those numbers suggest that if the Lib Dems could find a more credible leader, they could repeat the Cleggasm polling bounce when it comes to the election.

Sadly, that would require a different set of MPs.

They could make Carol Vorderman the leader from outside parliament?

Is Carol Vorderman a lib dem she always came across as sensible

RobD said:

Unpopular said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

algarkirk said:

12 years is far too long in this tragic case


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/26/teenager-murdered-newborn-son-herefordshire-jailed-paris-mayo

After the abortion verdict the other week, it feels like something has changed in the sentencing around cases like this. I don't remember any changes to the law, but it feels like there has been some kind of 'pro-life' shift that is much more punative towards desperate mothers.

Sounds like a tragic case. Obviously the crime requires a stiff sentence, I'm not qualified to say how stiff, but some of the remarks from the Judge, who appears to accept this girl acted out of fear and distress, seem a bit cruel.

That said, I don't think this is a 'pro-life'.

Yes, nothing to do with abortion rights. She abused the baby causing severe brain damage, then when it wouldn't die stuffed its mouth full of cotton wool to choke it to death. Being scared of what your parents might say doesn't seem like a particularly strong defence.

Andy_JS said:

Scott_xP said:

@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is twenty-three percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 24% (-3)
Lab 47% (+1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Other 16% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd - 26th June 2023
Sample: 1,089 GB adults
(Changes from 16th - 19th June 2023)

There probably will be another Tory leadership challenge if these types of figures are continually repeated. The whole point of Sunak was to get the Tories up to at least 30%-33%.

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

darkage said:

rcs1000 said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

darkage said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

eek said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

ManchesterKurt said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ManchesterKurt said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ManchesterKurt said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

StillWaters said:

pigeon said:

Taz said:

Heathener said:

Morning.

The mean Labour lead from the last six national opinion polls is exactly 20%

The mean Conservative vote share is 26%

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

The Tories won’t do themselves any favours overruling independent pay bodies on public sector pay.

We are just likely to see more and more strikes and disruption and not just from the likes of the RMT who are politically motivated.

They're in a complete bind. They'll trot out the wage-price spiral excuse to justify bearing down on public sector pay, but the plain fact is that they're struggling to find politically acceptable cuts to fund extra spending in this area, borrowing is enormous and becoming ever more expensive, and so they're left with either digging their heels in and offering workers peanuts, or raising taxes on their core supporters to pay for more generous rises. There's no violin small enough.

The reality we are reaching the end game for the Blairite/Thatcher-lite model

It used to be chunky public spending and low taxes with the difference funded by clever balance sheet tricks (PFI/securitisation) or straight up borrowing. Wages were kept down by relaxed views on immigration

Cost of borrowing is going up and the markets are twitchy after all that QE

Asset price bubbles have driven a reasonable standard of living beyond the reach of many

Effectively unlimited immigration has resulted in underinvestment in business (low wages partly due to immigration and partly due to tax credits) drove down returns (cost saving) on investment and increased the strain on public services (governments didn’t invest in capacity).

The electorate has been trained to believe the government will always bail them out

We need a grown up conversation. Either taxes have to go up massively or public services need to be completely rethought.

But neither politicians or the electorate are ready to have that conversation.

While much of this is true, it is also the case that other countries have had similar situations to us, and have managed to avoid excessively expensive housing or stagnant business investment.

They therefore cannot be the whole story.

It's almost as if our planning system might be different to theirs.

The largest cost in household budgets is Housing. Not food, not gas, not electricity or anything else it is housing.

A very large proportion of the cost of housing is the cost of land.

And the cost of land with planning permission is inflated over land without.

Resolve one and others follow.

Build new towns (or refurbish old ones) in the frozen north and left-behind regions. It solves the housing problem, levelling up and rebalancing the economy away from an overheated London in one fell swoop.

Not really

There are areas in the run down north with plenty of empty housing, just look at the photo at the top of this article....

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/news-opinion/britain-broken-every-direction-know-27184397

Yes, hence the new town model, even if based on refurbishment, to include attracting new jobs. Rather than dumping grounds for borderline mentally ill drug addicts and thieves.

Why on earth would any company set up in a newly created new town that no doubt has awful connections to anywhere with any sort of existing economy ?

Government subsidies, tax concessions, northern powerhouse rail? Britain has built new towns before; there's nothing new.

NPR won't land until 2045 onwards and will connect Warrington, Manchester and Marsden, no new stops planned, just linking existing populations.

So you want to create new towns, with no links to existing economies and hope that lower taxes will attract businesses there ?

Our London based media's obsession over trains is part of the problem. Over 90% of the UK travels via Road, not Rail, especially in the North.

If you want new towns then new motorway junctions, or better yet new motorways with new junctions is the way to do it quickly. Rail can catch up afterwards.

Not just in the North, in the South away from London it's very possible too. Eg build a new motorway linking Oxford to Cambridge, extended to Bristol and Norwich perhaps, and with a junction approximately every 5 miles. New towns could spring up along that route, and not in or linked to London.

Sorry but new roads don’t solve problems - and it’s probably worth watching c4 to,or row to see Ben Elton comparing rail around London and the rest of the UK.

That sort of timid, self defeating attitude is part of the problem. Of course new roads do solve problems.

I live in a fast growing new town (they do still exist, just not enough of them). We have thousands of homes being built, all of which are getting snapped up. New shops, businesses, industry opening too.

And what is the key new transport infrastructure underpinning this? One new motorway junction, with one new A road.

There's talk we might get a train station in a few years time, I'm not holding my breath, but the new motorway junction? People who get about by road are happy with that. And outside London it's roads, not rail, that truly matters. Of course London is different but WE ARE NOT LONDON.

The problem here is that what you are now making is an argument for planning, which you claim to reject. The reason why everything is working in your development is more likely than not because decades of work went in to the new trunk roads and motorway junctions, negotiated by the Council with Highways England and the government, as well as the co-siting of commercial development and community infrastructure, and finding ways to fund all this, including through Section 106 contributions by developers. That is what planning is and the value that it adds. If you get rid of planning then none of that happens, houses get built but you can't get anywhere, there are crap roads, no shops, infrastructure etc.

You could say ok, why not just zone the land through the plan making process and then have a design code rather than having to go through the pain and delay of needing planning permission. You could well do that and some countries do. The main problem is it makes it harder to go through the first stage of the process (the plan making stage) because you need to be absolutely sure that everything is solved before you can confidently rely on a design code for the purposes of delivery.

A design code is just a delivery mechanism not an alternative to having a planning system. Looking at your example of Japan, my guess is just that they are better at planning because the state is more assertive and organised at building infrastructure. I'd guess the falling prices are more to do with historic deflation than falling demand. But I've never studied the Japanese system in detail so don't feel able to authoritively comment on it.

In summary the problem is not that a planning system exists in the first place, but because the one we have isn't working very well.

Sorry that's not remotely an argument for planning, you could not be more wrong. There isn't time for decades of work as our population levels weren't the same decades ago, and if decades of work are going into it then no wonder everything is so broken as the facts decades ago are not the facts today.

If everything is planned then I'm curious where the new railway station, new schools, new GPs and everything else are. None of them exist. I still am registered at my old GP in my old town, I've not transferred my kids schooling either, and drive across the river to a different town for those.

Organic development works better. If houses are built, but no schools etc then people will vote for what they need. Unsurprisingly at the local elections the local Lib Dem (who got elected) was not campaigning on NIMBYism, but supporting new GPs to built and new schools to be built. Because that's what the new residents need and its not all there yet. Supermarkets have opened etc because businesses like Aldi and ASDA will open branches where their customers are. Thousands of people move into an area, they'll be in like a shot to get a shot at those customers.

The state is bloody useless at planning. Design transportation, sure, then let it organically grow in what's zoned there.

Ok, so you don't think there should be planning, with the exception of road building. There should be no state provision for day to day needs etc - shops, healthcare etc, because this will follow where people choose to build houses because politicians will be elected to make it happen. There would be no public realm, or town centres, just housing and roads, and supermarkets.

This all sounds like a total disaster to me.

No. I think there should be healthcare, and schools etc but it should evolve depending upon what the voters need.

Not spend decades planning what was needed decades ago, but is totally obsolete decades later as the facts have changed so much all your plans were based on faulty assumptions.

The latter is a proven disaster today.

@BartholomewRoberts would welcome your thoughts on this

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/here-s-what-s-missing-everything-no-schools-and-no-services-but-houses-keep-going-up-20221012-p5bp7o.html


" The public primary was the size of a country school and now has 19 demountables. The closest shops were 20 minutes away; if she forgot milk, it was a 40-minute round trip, often in traffic. Trains came hourly, even at the peak. Narrow roads were choked. The hospital repeatedly promised for nearby Rouse Hill didn’t exist, and still doesn’t. Meanwhile, the population grows exponentially."... “They knew we were coming. Where did they think we were going to shop? Where did they think our children would go to school? It comes down to better planning. Stop rushing to get people into these houses.”...

But people moving into those areas say it takes more than a bunch of rapidly constructed houses to create a community. “So here’s what’s missing,” said Angela Van Dyke of the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre and Community Aid Service. “Everything. Public education. Public transport. Good urban design. Livability.”... Michelle Rowland, the Labor federal member for the north-west seat of Greenway (and also the communications minister), said the problem was due to a long-term failure of different levels of government to coordinate. “Developers, basically, in a lot of aspects, they do have free rein,” she said. “The incentive of the developer is to maximise land use to maximise profit. Which is why you have a lot of residents complaining [about] what normally they’d call overdevelopment, but a lot of it is to do with a lack of trees, a lack of environmental controls, houses are close together, streets are narrow.”

Presumably he'd say that given the people exist, that is better to have houses and no schools, than to have neither houses nor schools.

@rcs1000

There is something in that argument , but I don't think that is what he is saying. I think he sees the idea of town planning as being socially destructive and a massive cost with no benefits. The usual libertarian thing. But the contradiction is, that when you go and look at the libertarian societies they hold up as examples they tend to actually be quite well planned, ie Singapore and the USA, there is always an active state authority doing the zoning, brokering the economic development etc. I am pretty sure Japan will come in to this category as well.

It kind of is what I'm saying actually, yes.

As far as zoning etc is concerned, I'm perfectly fine with that. Pick your agricultural, natural and residential zones etc and the let the Council get out of the way of development within residential zones, even if natural/agricultural zones can't be developed. Which incidentally can work with 'green belt' desires, since you don't zone the green belt residential then.

Now of course personally I'd prefer the residential zones to be bigger than they are now, but that's a semi-separate debate.

Beyond that though, I am saying since we have a shortage of 3 million homes today, and we don't have 3 million homes with planning permission let alone under construction, then JFDI applies. Just frigging do it.

Get the homes built. Better to not be homeless.

Once the homes are built, of course better ideally to have commerce, schools etc - but in the mean time better to have a home than no home.

And of course since this is the UK, not Australia or Canada, even if there's no school [yet] within your area there will be schools not very far away. This isn't rural Alberta or Western Australia where your nearest town is 400 km away.

As I said, my kids go to a different school, in a different town, than the one where I live. There is a small primary and secondary school where I live, which kind of used to be a village but is now a new town [the overwhelming majority of houses in this town did not exist in 2010], but they are small and I like my kids school so we're not transferring them. My kids still have places in the school over the river and I drive them there. Oh and if I didn't drive, there are school buses that come down our road to collect kids to take them to where my kids go to school. I'm guessing we're far from unique in crossing the river to get to school, and there's an option via dedicated school buses for those who don't drive.

OK then. Your planning reform is to have residential 'zones' with planning permission granted for 3 million plus new houses. You now seem to be accepting that there is a heavy sacrifice (over and beyond what was identified in the example in linked to above) in terms of infrastructure provision, placemaking etc, but consider it is all necessary to deal with the over-riding housing need. You believe that it can and will all be worked out in some way afterwards.

I think this would be a disaster. It bakes in dependency on the car and the need for continuous expensive upgrades to roads and bridges for generations.
I also think that the JFDI direction will not actually deliver much more housing. Because as I have pointed out before, the housebuilding industry deliver about 100-150 k houses a year and nothing more and all the signs are that they would continue to do this under any new policy.

There would be some SME/self building going on but the industry is small and it is not going to be at any significant scale. It won't seriously come on stream until capacity in the construction industry is massively increased. And on these projects, someone else still has to build and fund the roads, the streetlights, the drains etc.

Prices may fall because of oversupply but they would quickly hit a level where new housebuilding becomes uneconomic in many areas because of build cost inflation. So my best guess is that you would quickly end up with lots of empty plots and a recession.

If you look through the post war history of housebuilding it is very clear that the only time the government delivers 300,000 houses a year is when it builds half of them itself.

Sorry but you've got your own assumptions then have worked backwards from there.

Firstly there's no need for it all to be dependent on the car, in fact the opposite is possible too. If existing residential zones become denser and build up then that can lead to public transport becoming more efficient, not less. Not that I have any objection to the motor vehicle, but I think my proposal if implemented would see places like London seeing building up happening and I wouldn't expect those to be all homes relying upon cars.

Secondly all the evidence from around the planet is that without planning being an insurmountable obstacle is that SME/self-building should happen at a very significant scale. In almost every country with my proposed system, SME/self-builds happen at orders of magnitude more than here.

As far as funding the roads etc is concerned that needs to happen either way, planning or no planning. That's what the tax system is for. We pay our taxes, we need roads and transportation. Politicians need to do their job. If you want to put a tax on new houses that goes to a pot to pay towards new roads, then I have no philosophical objection to that, but we pay our taxes either way.

As far as prices are concerned, too much of the price of new homes currently is planning itself. If that ceases to be the case, then prices can fall without hurting development. If land becomes cheaper, but taxed more [two prongs to this] then land-banking would never happen and people are encouraged to get on with it rather than to dawdle.

Finally its very clear in the history of housebuilding around the planet, that when competition is allowed to flourish and demand is high then people can and do get on with it. The city of Tokyo alone [population 14 million] has consistently delivered more new homes than the entirety of England combined. As a former cheese loving Prime Minister might have said: That. Is. A. Disgrace.

Saying that our current system isn't working, so therefore reform is pointless, rather misses the point don't you think?

Ok. So you are now going to insist that the houses are built more densely to avoid the problem of 'suburban sprawl'.
How is public transport going to work efficiently - Do the authorities put in the transit routes before the zoning or afterwards?
At what point would the authorities consider something like walkways, cycle paths etc? At the point when the land is zoned, or afterwards?
Regarding your comments about much of the cost of new housing being 'planning', this is true to a point, but what about other factors such as 'desirability of location'? Would you agree that the cost of land for housing (and reflected in sale prices) is also influenced by this? For instance, in that article I linked to above, the houses in the suburbs of Sydney were not cheap - the defective planning had not reduced the desirability of the location.


I would agree that the system isn't working that well and needs to be reformed, but that is an altogether different idea from 'getting rid of planning'.

FWIW your ideas are very similar to what the government (via policy exchange) actually proposed in January 2020.

https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Rethinking-the-Planning-System-for-the-21st-Century.pdf

The government then developed this set of reforms off the back of it in a white paper, which I thought were actually pretty good.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/958420/MHCLG-Planning-Consultation.pdf

Unfortunately this work basically went nowhere. The only legacy of it is a set of perplexing reforms to the use classes order, making it difficult for Council's to control changes of use.

No, I'm not going to "insist" that houses are built more densely. What part of it is it that you're struggling to understand, I don't think anyone should insist upon anything, myself included.

Let the owner of the land decide.

Where land is valuable in its own right, rather than because of planning, eg in cities then building up will probably happen not because you or I want it, but because that's the most effective use of land so people will choose to do it.

Transit routes, along with schooling and other public services should evolve over time, you might have an initial idea but it shouldn't ever be ossified. People change and adapt what they use. An area that is bought out by young people may end up becoming embraced by old people - sometimes the same ex-young people who never moved.

We need to evolve over time, not plan something based on the needs of decades ago.

Yes the 2020 reforms were a good idea, didn't go as far as I'd like but a big step in the right direction, its a shame they were dropped.

In the end I think you probably want a different system of planning, not the abolition of planning.

My criticism however is that you are presenting a superficially easy answer ("scrap planning") to a complicated question.

Zoning rather than our current Byzantine planning laws. If land is zoned residential, then let people build whatever they want on it subject to residential regulations, without input from local politicians or NIMBY neighbours.

That doesn't mean a skyscraper of apartments will be built in the middle of national parks though, since skyscrapers won't meet regulations and national parks won't be zoned residential.

Ok zoning, subject to regulations and design codes. Not a bad idea and works in many countries. I struggle to really see how it is that different to outline planning permission or permission in principle. All the same issues would come up that come up at the point when the land was zoned as would be the case in an outline planning application, IE the roads, congestion, drainage, flooding, ecological, social infrastructure, impact on landscape. The delays that people associate with Council bureaucracy are usually actually rooted in a deeper and more pathological problems with the decision making processes of the British state, the legacy of shoddy attempts at privatisation and the aversion to spend public money on the part of government. None of that gets swept away with a new planning system.

The only way you could immediately zone land for 3 million houses is to ignore the real planning consequences of doing so which would then become apparent extremely quickly.

I'm curious what particular "consequences" would become apparent? Considering you'd have a net total of approximately zero extra cars on the road, net total of approximately zero extra pupils in school etc

The thing is all the people, all the kids, all the cars etc are already here today. We aren't talking millions of extra people, just having enough homes for the people who are already here anyway.

Its not as if kids are denied school places, just because their parents can't afford a home of their own. If their parents suddenly can get a home of their own, then the kids can keep going to the same school they're already going to anyway.

Andy_JS said:

Scott_xP said:

@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is twenty-three percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 24% (-3)
Lab 47% (+1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Other 16% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd - 26th June 2023
Sample: 1,089 GB adults
(Changes from 16th - 19th June 2023)

There probably will be another Tory leadership challenge if these types of figures are continually repeated. The whole point of Sunak was to get the Tories up to at least 30%-33%.

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

Scott_xP said:

@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is twenty-three percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 24% (-3)
Lab 47% (+1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Other 16% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd - 26th June 2023
Sample: 1,089 GB adults
(Changes from 16th - 19th June 2023)

There probably will be another Tory leadership challenge if these types of figures are continually repeated. The whole point of Sunak was to get the Tories up to at least 30%-33%.

Which would be utterly pointless given the only Tory who could now get the Tories back to 30-33% would be Boris who is no longer an MP and ineligible.

Sunak wanted to be PM, he got rid of Boris with Hunt and has made his bed and must now lie in it.

The right and ERG have also decided to wait and let Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election as far as I can see, blame them for defeat, then the right will start to take the party over again in opposition when Starmer's Labour government will have to deal with the economy

TheScreamingEagles said:

Labour leads by 18%.

Westminster VI (25 June):

Labour 44% (-2)
Conservative 26% (–)
Liberal Democrat 13% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (-1)
Green 5% (-1)
Scottish National Party 3% (–)
Other 3% (+2)

Changes +/- 18 June

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1673360483288752135

Sandpit said:

Flatlander said:

Jim_Miller said:

Less than an hour ago, the Washington Post put up this story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/26/putin-prigozhin-russia-rebellion-wagner/
"RIGA, Latvia — Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin resurfaced Monday for the first time since his Saturday mutiny, and declared that his motive was to save the private militia from being subsumed into the Russian military — not to topple President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin, who did not disclose his whereabouts, said he ordered the rebellion after Russia’s military killed 30 Wagner fighters in a missile strike on one of the militia’s camps, and he said he accepted a deal to avoid prosecution and move to Belarus because it would allow Wagner to continue its operations there."

OK, what's in it for Lukashenko? And is Putin still planning to send him some nukes?

How many nukes have Wagner "nicked" whilst on their little spree?

In my conspiracy it was all staged so they could have some plausible deniability when he fires a couple "accidentally".

Though you'd have thought they'd have chosen cheaper helicopters to crash.

The loss of that Il-18 reconnaissance plane, says that this wasn’t a planned event. The Russians had only a handful of them, and they’re irreplaceable.

algarkirk said:

Sandpit said:

algarkirk said:

12 years is far too long in this tragic case


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/26/teenager-murdered-newborn-son-herefordshire-jailed-paris-mayo

A premeditated murder should always carry a life sentence. She knew she was doing something badly wrong.

The law of infanticide exists for these cases, the legal system has understood such cases with compassion for 100 years.

"The maximum penalty for infanticide is life imprisonment. However, in practice a non-custodial sentence is usually the outcome. This non-custodial sentence will however, often be subject to a treatment or a hospital order."

Mexicanpete said:

...

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

Scott_xP said:

@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is twenty-three percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 24% (-3)
Lab 47% (+1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Other 16% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd - 26th June 2023
Sample: 1,089 GB adults
(Changes from 16th - 19th June 2023)

There probably will be another Tory leadership challenge if these types of figures are continually repeated. The whole point of Sunak was to get the Tories up to at least 30%-33%.

Which would be utterly pointless given the only Tory who could now get the Tories back to 30-33% would be Boris who is no longer an MP and ineligible.

Sunak wanted to be PM, he got rid of Boris with Hunt and has made his bed and must now lie in it.

The right and ERG have also decided to wait and let Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election as far as I can see, blame them for defeat, then the right will start to take the party over again in opposition when Starmer's Labour government will have to deal with the economy

If a Labour win looks inevitable will the current Government salt the earth for a swift return?

numbertwelve said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

WhisperingOracle said:

The statement from Prigozhin isn't too easy for Putin.

He's careful to position himself as not to be publicly disloyal, but virtually the whole message is about positioning himself as an alternative power centre to Putin. We would have done it all better, we showed up problems in security in patchworks, etc.

Priogozhin alternative power center to Mad Vlad?

Perhaps. But he's really more along the lines of another Russian (sorta) sociopath and war criminal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_von_Ungern-Sternberg

I think I subscribe to the view that the man is just a loose cannon rather than a master manipulator with designs on the Kremlin. However, the unanswered question is whether he has exposed cracks in the apparatus of the Russian state that will start pulling apart, and whether there may be someone who is in the background supporting all this.

FF43 said:

..

Pagan2 said:

williamglenn said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

tlg86 said:

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1673229977595129857

@JohnRentoul
Cooper found 75% said it was “time for a change” in 2009, but only 37% said time for a change to the Tories
Now, 79% say it is “time for a change”; and 37% say time for a change to Labour

Those numbers suggest that if the Lib Dems could find a more credible leader, they could repeat the Cleggasm polling bounce when it comes to the election.

Sadly, that would require a different set of MPs.

They could make Carol Vorderman the leader from outside parliament?

Is Carol Vorderman a lib dem she always came across as sensible

She's a bit obsessed about how corrupt the Conservatives are. There's a lot of conservative corruption to be obsessed about, of course. Which is why the usual suspects on here are calling her unhinged.

BlancheLivermore said:

Amazing ODI WC qualifier between WI and NL today

Teams tied on 374

Then NL bowler, and number nine batsman, Logan van Beek BATS the super-over for NL. Hits Holder for three fours and three sixes for thirty in the over

He then bowls the WI super-over. Goes for eight runs, including first ball for six, and takes two wickets

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-qualifier-2023-1377745/netherlands-vs-west-indies-18th-match-group-a-1377763/full-scorecard

boulay said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Cookie said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Cookie said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

bondegezou said:

Farooq said:

carnforth said:

TOPPING said:

Ghedebrav said:

williamglenn said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Cookie said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

While we're at it, I've also been a bit puzzled by the disappearance of 'thrice'. It's a perfectly useful word, but no one would ever now think of using it in a serious context. Why did it die off and when?

I blame Lionel Ritchie.

I rather like 'thrice'. I'm not averse to using it, though I might demur from using it in a document I'm writing for work.
But I hate the Americanism 'threepeat'.

That's not because it wouldn't be useful to have a word meaning 'do somthing three times'. It just feels linguistically wrong. It would only work if the word for repeat was 'twopeat'.

Eugh threepeat is not something I have heard before. Thanks for putting that monstrosity in my mind.

You need to listen to more US sports commentary for similar gems like 'winningest'.

'Medal' as a verb is a bit irritating.

That's old hat. People don't medal any more. They podium.

That's gross, but marginally preferable. At least it doesn't sound like an existing verb like medal does.

I don't see the problem with people verbing nouns. Everyone understands what is meant and it's succinct.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips

From "Richard II"

Shakespeare was an American, bent on polluting the purity of the English language? Who'd've thunk it?!?

I remember reading that if you wanted to hear Shakespearean English, the best place to go would be rural coastal Virginia. For a long time, this part of the world was small and unchanging and relatively isolated and retained the tongue of its settlers; indeed, it was fast paced metropolitan Britain where language moved on. Much of what fusty Brits lament as American neologisms are actually American paleologisms.

Maybe. However, load of dubious claims along these lines, which interesting have tended to cite denizens of Appalachia (including West Virginia and western VA but NOT eastern VA) as speaking something very akin to Elizabethan English.

Take such claims with large grains of salt. Which is NOT to say there's not (perhaps) a wee bit of there there.

Pinch of salt noted - but my understanding of Appalachia is that it was settled rather later, and by settlers from the lawless borderlands of England/Scotland (sometimes via a generation or two in Northern Ireland). Hence the tradition of the feud in this neck of the woods! And linguistically, a slightly different base to the cocktail.

ISTR you are from West Virginia? So please treat this as suitably speculative rather than me trying to tell you your own local history!

Zero offense taken! Yes, Appalachian heritage heavily Scots Irish, however with significant German element; for example, typical hillybilly usage "youngin" is pronounced virtually identically to "Jugend".

All of which rather undermines the old Appalachian English = Elizabethan English theory.

BTW, in Appalachia, the locals pronounce it "Ap-a-LACH-ah" and NOT "Ap-a-LAY-cha" which is how the rest of USA says it, as in "Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland.

I might be wrong but doesn’t the word “hillbilly” itself come from the Scots/Irish Protestant settlers there in reference to King Billy of Protestant god status?

Carnyx said:

eek said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

Scott_xP said:

@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is twenty-three percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 24% (-3)
Lab 47% (+1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Other 16% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd - 26th June 2023
Sample: 1,089 GB adults
(Changes from 16th - 19th June 2023)

There probably will be another Tory leadership challenge if these types of figures are continually repeated. The whole point of Sunak was to get the Tories up to at least 30%-33%.

Which would be utterly pointless given the only Tory who could now get the Tories back to 30-33% would be Boris who is no longer an MP and ineligible.

Sunak wanted to be PM, he got rid of Boris with Hunt and has made his bed and must now lie in it.

The right and ERG have also decided to wait and let Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election as far as I can see, blame them for defeat, then the right will start to take the party over again in opposition when Starmer's Labour government will have to deal with the economy

If a Labour win looks inevitable will the current Government salt the earth for a swift return?

They already have - the problem is the current "mortgage" crisis and the subsequent issues have the Tory Party's name all over it...

Talking about lorryloads of salt, the GRaun feed reports that the HO has just announced that each incomer deported to Rwanda costs £169K. And then done some handwaving to show that that will save £106K, which they can make with further handwaving a suspiciously close £165K. Sounds like the economics dept of the Dept for Transport have been involved.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Another U turn by Starmer according to the Times

Labour ditches £3bn tax on big tech amid fear of US retaliation

Sandpit said:

Flatlander said:

Jim_Miller said:

Less than an hour ago, the Washington Post put up this story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/26/putin-prigozhin-russia-rebellion-wagner/
"RIGA, Latvia — Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin resurfaced Monday for the first time since his Saturday mutiny, and declared that his motive was to save the private militia from being subsumed into the Russian military — not to topple President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin, who did not disclose his whereabouts, said he ordered the rebellion after Russia’s military killed 30 Wagner fighters in a missile strike on one of the militia’s camps, and he said he accepted a deal to avoid prosecution and move to Belarus because it would allow Wagner to continue its operations there."

OK, what's in it for Lukashenko? And is Putin still planning to send him some nukes?

How many nukes have Wagner "nicked" whilst on their little spree?

In my conspiracy it was all staged so they could have some plausible deniability when he fires a couple "accidentally".

Though you'd have thought they'd have chosen cheaper helicopters to crash.

The loss of that Il-18 reconnaissance plane, says that this wasn’t a planned event. The Russians had only a handful of them, and they’re irreplaceable.