@KevinASchofield SCOOP: BBC director general Tim Davie will address the next meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.
To say this is highly unusual would be an understatement.
That’s extraordinary. How on earth does he think this wouldn’t eventually come out . Can you imagine the furore of Tories and the right wing press if Davie turned up at a Labour gathering .
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Trouble is antisemitic tropes tend to be defined in America or sometimes Eastern Europe, rather than being common currency here, where as noted we have Octopus Energy but not Swastika Energy. Similarly, complaints about currency speculators are sometimes held to be antisemitic because the American right targets Soros of Black Wednesday fame, who is Jewish.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I suspect those properties are smaller than 100sq metres.
And even with our unproductive building methods there is a lot to be gained from building 50+ houses of standardized design on a single plot...
A bit different to ridiculously claiming £350k as a minimum, and explains how developers are able to make a very healthy profit on £180-200k homes, they're making a fortune at those rates.
Of course deal with the consent issue and there would be no need for "developers" anymore, so "developer profit" would drop to £0.
Deal with the cost of land and consent and house prices would plummet.
Denver Post (via Seattle Times) - Lauren Boebert, far behind leading challenger in fundraising, feels squeeze from both sides in 2024 election
DENVER — U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert is getting squeezed from both sides of the political aisle in the money race as she faces a growing field of challengers hoping to thwart her reelection next year.
Third-quarter fundraising totals reported in recent days in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District show the Republican incumbent was outraised by her most prominent Democratic foe, Adam Frisch, by a factor of 4-to-1. And Jeff Hurd, a Boebert challenger in next year’s GOP primary, posted sizable totals indicating he also might pose trouble for the two-term congresswoman.
Boebert’s haul for the period from July 1 to Sept. 30 was just shy of $854,000, according to the recent campaign finance reports. Earlier this month, before filing his full quarterly report, former Aspen city councilman Frisch, who narrowly lost to Boebert in 2022, touted a nearly $3.4 million haul during the same time frame.
Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, collected just over $412,000 despite launching his campaign only in mid-August. . . .
Hurd has managed to gain the backing of several prominent Colorado Republicans, including Bruce Benson, a former University of Colorado president; John Suthers, the former Colorado Springs mayor and state attorney general; Daniel Ritchie, a former University of Denver chancellor; and former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown.
n recent weeks, several Republican county commissioners on the Western Slope have broken with their party’s incumbent to throw in with Hurd, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The parties’ primaries are set for June 25, with the general election in November 2024. . . .
Frisch has raised more than $7.7 million since the beginning of the year, versus just over $2.4 million for Boebert. The congresswoman had $1.4 million in cash on hand at the start of the month, while Frisch’s war chest had more than $4.3 million.
Russ Andrews, a Republican engineer and financial adviser running to take on Boebert in next year’s primary, raised nearly $34,000 in donations during the third quarter, in addition to about $255,000 he loaned or gave his campaign, according to his finance report.
On the Democratic side, Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout garnered just over $100,000 after announcing her run in late July. Several other candidates from both sides of the aisle reported less significant or nominal sums.
The Cook Political Report rates the race, which is likely to be one of the country’s most closely watched next year, as a “toss up.”
A Democrat hasn’t won the district since John Salazar won reelection 15 years ago. Salazar lost his seat in 2010 to former Rep. Scott Tipton, a Republican who served five terms before his surprise loss in the 2020 GOP primary to Boebert.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
It must be really chastening for Rishi Sunak, who by any odds has had a remarkably successful and lucrative career, to realise he just isn’t any good at this. Oxford. Fulbright Scholar. Goldman Sachs. Chancellor. First Asian-extraction British PM.
And he just can’t do it. Whatever he tries doesn’t work. How do you get up every morning and start work knowing you’re not going to succeed?
I've been harsh on Sunak in the past and I once said he was a man who had never failed at anything or had known defeat. If you go into politics there's a fair chance that will change.
It could be a positive and character building experience for him and remember he's only 43 (Blair's age in 1997). In twenty years time opinions of him could be very different and he might be the respected elder statesman.
The truth is there may be nothing as ex as an ex-MP (as someone once said) but there's really nothing as ex as an ex-PM. Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Truss, Johnson - all still with us, all still able to contribute to the national debte but do they? If they do, does anyone listen or are their past sins thrown back at them and used as an excuse to ignore them?
Nope in 20 years time his screwing round with HS2 will be regarded as a sign of utter incompetency highlighting the reduction of the UK's status as it's seen as incompetent...
One of the very first things I was taught in my economics degree was that knowledge is everything so if a skill set is required retaining that knowledge is very important.
Which means that you should have a continual set of projects going (rail electrification. nuclear power station developments, roads....) so that you aren't starting afresh all the time needing to import foreign expertise because no-one in the UK has done this in x0 years
That works fine when the projects you want to build are both economially viable and necessary. There were lots of programmes that could apply to. HS2 was not one of them and indeed it sucked money away from other more important and useful projects.
It’s possible (reasonable even) to argue that HS2 itself was misconceived from the start. But the fact remains that rail transport in this country, both passenger & freight, would benefit greatly from a N<->S high speed passenger rail line. The other routes are full to capacity - the demand is clearly there.
The underlying problem seems to be that we are completely unable to build projects that are of clear economic benefit at all thanks to a Treasury that cannot see beyond the next budget & a planning system that drives up the cost beyond all reasonable measure. The only way to get HS2 through parliament at all was to turn it into some gold-plated national monument to Britain. It’s no way to run a railway, or an economy for that matter.
A high speed rail project like HS2 should cost something like a third the HS2 budget: the HS2 costs are a symptom of wider problems in the UK economy. Every major infrastructure project spends interminable years trapped in a planning system that not only imposes insane costs all by itself, it drives up the cost of the final project by $billions.
The problem being that we need East/West and intra-region capacity a lot more than we need North/South (which actually just means London to the rest of the country). We could find far more useful and viable projects for every penny of that which was going to be spent on HS2 - whether it was the original £37.5 billion or the pre-abandonment £180 billion.
HS2 was the infrastructure equivalent of that old problem that plagues politics.
We must do something This is something We must do it.
The question you should be asking is not: why HS2? But rather: why is it apparently impossible to build these other projects?
I note in passing that a country which had built these other projects would probably be one that would happily build another north-south train line as the economic advantages would be obvious & unarguable & we would have an economy which could more easily afford the interest costs.
I think the answer to that one is obvius although sad. WHatever they might say, the London-centric politicians simply don't care about the North and don't want to waste money on it. That applied to Labour for years because they thought the North would vote for them anyway and to the Tories because they knew the North would never vote for them. (The Brexit effect being the exception).
The other thing is the absurd costs.
Once a project gets “unique mega project” status, it inevitably gets turned into a football.
HS2 should have been the “National rail investment plan, section 16, project 4”
Absolutely. Korea's rail plan had the concept of a 'half day country' - which means being able to get from any one place to another in half a day - and worked from there.
The construction of their national road network, which started back in the 70s, was similarly consistent.
Of course they make mistakes, encounter problems, and have corruption like everywhere else. But having a consistent, and persistent plan works.
I talked with a councillor a couple of days ago, at a Police-meets-the-locals event.
His reaction to my point about needing continual development to go with a continually growing population was interesting.
He seemed to be trying to call me racist. Because in his mind, there should be no development - some re-development of sites (this is London). But nothing new. So he (at first) assumed I was arguing for zero immigration. Because no-one wants development.
Tbf (and I don't mean with you) this point is frequently used in that way by wily operators of the hard right. The idea is you start with the assumption that people instinctively don't want lots more development in our Green and Pleasant - typically amping this prospect up with a bit of 'new Birmingham every fortnight' type rhetoric - and then you say, well we simply have to do it (build a new Birmingham every fortnight) because of all this immigration we have ('have' here is subliminally 'allow' not 'need'). The desired effect of the conversation (when embarked on in this spirit) is that your audience thinks (although maybe doesn't always say), ah well maybe we should stop letting all these foreigners in then, our country is full, and hey so *that's* why I can't see a GP or get a council house or a place at the nursery etc etc.
Well, if you put pint and half in a pint pot, shit will go sideways.
Buy a bigger fucking pot.
Not sure who I like less - the zero immigration crowd or the "We love immigration. Just not places for immigrants to live, work, sleep"
When I become unDictator, they will be providing shade for the roads. Maybe on opposite sides of the road? Hmmmmmm.....
Yes but let me ask you a searingly honest direct question - seeing as we know each other and so you won't take it the wrong way:
Do you - YOU - genuinely want to see masses of new development happening all over our country? Would you vote for it?
Or is your affection for this line of argument (with the stressed link to immigration) more that it allows you to unsettle those 'love immigration in the abstract' types who annoy you as much as racists do?
I want to build a Birmingham every fucking year. Until everyone has a fucking enormous house. You know, one of those vast mansions where you have one bedroom per adult/child.
As opposed to the arseholes who seem to think that immigration is wonderful as long as they live in barracks on the Latifundium or something.
Ok. Terrific. But your 1st point stands nicely on its own so why that 2nd 'immigration' comment again? It's like you're saying the 1st thing mainly in order to say the 2nd.
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I suspect those properties are smaller than 100sq metres.
And even with our unproductive building methods there is a lot to be gained from building 50+ houses of standardized design on a single plot...
They're still homes for people to live in and have a home of their own.
Houses are expensive due to land and consent, not due to building costs. The idea a house needs to be £350k is absolutely insane.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
From whom !
Yes we want our country back from the Tories !
Another MP who thinks his priorities are the peoples priorities.
I see the government has abandoned the nutrient neutrality changes that were supposed to enable up to “140,000” houses, per FT.
They had no chance of getting it through. Makes sense. Shame though.
Why not?
I don’t know enough about the policy to have an opinion on its merits, but I do know this was the only remaining housing policy from Rishi Sunak and a supposed Brexit dividend to boot. A big deal was made of it.
And now, like the railway promises allegedly accompanying the abandonment of HS2, it’s melted away like tears in the rain.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
From whom !
Yes we want our country back from the Tories !
Another MP who thinks his priorities are the peoples priorities.
This is what happens when a party has been in power too long. Crazy infighting breaks out: are we unpopular because we're too pure, or because we aren't pure enough?
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
From whom !
Yes we want our country back from the Tories !
Another MP who thinks his priorities are the peoples priorities.
It really grates on me when any party pretends to know the public’s priorities.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
@KevinASchofield SCOOP: BBC director general Tim Davie will address the next meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.
To say this is highly unusual would be an understatement.
Is he running for leader ?
Perhaps he is appealing to them - bootlessly, for sure - to stop shitting on the BBC which for all its faults is practically the only institution left operating in the UK which retains respect from abroad.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Not all octopuses are antisemitic, but they can be used in an antisemitic way.
The fact she's put out an apology would suggest she doesn't think it was an unfortunate coincidence.
I agree. On a scale of 0-10, with 0 being the Octopus Energy logo and 10 being that disgraceful Rowson cartoon, a stuffed octopus in the background of a protest photo is a 1 or 2 at most.
The whole "stand with Gaza" thing without a word about the Jewish victims of Hamas's terror attack, however, is another matter... You can at least say you deplore the acts of depravity committed by Hamas, before going on to support the end of the siege in Gaza on humanitarian grounds. But no, the silence on that one is deafening...
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
Currently there is an affordability pause and a number of people selling up from the amateur landlord thing. So house prices are going down a bit.
The problem is that that this is finite. The population pressure is continuous. House price increases will resume - note that there is no drop in the rental sector prices.
Inflation can provide a useful "cover" for erosion of price. As in "My house went up 2% last year" - but inflation was 5%. What it won't do is erode underlying prices.
If we don't seriously increase supply, we will simply have 15% price rises (or whatever) with 5% inflation.
Here we differ. IMO the property bubble has popped. Why? Because interest rates have tripled and are staying that way for a long time. So even without fixing the supply side we'll be seeing considerably lower house prices and they won't be going bonzer again anytime soon.
BUT this doesn't mean I disagree that we need to build more houses. We do. And building more will also be a healthy downwards factor on prices. So I don't disagree with you as such. I just think you're simplifying and overegging with the 'it's all about supply' mantra.
Supply is key. So are interest rates. So is Social Housing.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
I see the government has abandoned the nutrient neutrality changes that were supposed to enable up to “140,000” houses, per FT.
They had no chance of getting it through. Makes sense. Shame though.
Why not?
I don’t know enough about the policy to have an opinion on its merits, but I do know this was the only remaining housing policy from Rishi Sunak and a supposed Brexit dividend to boot. A big deal was made of it.
And now, like the railway promises allegedly accompanying the abandonment of HS2, it’s melted away like tears in the rain.
They had no chance of getting it through as NIMBYs in the Tory party and labour, for politics, opposed it.
The govt also fired up anger from various charities, lobbyists and groups like the RSPB.
The govt scheme proposed to replace it was actually an improvement on the current proposals.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
Everywhere (worldwide) is hurting right now: Germany is hurting, the UK is hurting, the US is hurting.
The economic woes that are being suffered are largely a consequence of inflation returning after a close to quarter century gap, and people being hit by food costs and bills rising faster than incomes.
And to get on top of this inflation, central banks have increased interest rates, resulting in yet more pain to those with mortgages, or those who hope to get on the property ladder.
But, yes, I grant you the comments about gender are almost certainly right. It's the Heirarchy of Needs: if you need food and shelter, then someone ranting about pronouns isn't going to go down well.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
Currently there is an affordability pause and a number of people selling up from the amateur landlord thing. So house prices are going down a bit.
The problem is that that this is finite. The population pressure is continuous. House price increases will resume - note that there is no drop in the rental sector prices.
Inflation can provide a useful "cover" for erosion of price. As in "My house went up 2% last year" - but inflation was 5%. What it won't do is erode underlying prices.
If we don't seriously increase supply, we will simply have 15% price rises (or whatever) with 5% inflation.
Here we differ. IMO the property bubble has popped. Why? Because interest rates have tripled and are staying that way for a long time. So even without fixing the supply side we'll be seeing considerably lower house prices and they won't be going bonzer again anytime soon.
BUT this doesn't mean I disagree about the need to build more house. We do. And building more will (all else being equal) be a healthy downwards factor on prices. So I don't disagree. I just think you're simplifying and overegging with the 'it's all about supply' mantra.
Supply is key. So are interest rates. So is Social Housing.
The property bubble hasn't burst in terms of people actually being able to afford a home (rented or bought).
What we have is a change in the maximum price the market will bear. Because people only have so much money. The price is still unaffordable for many, many people.
Israel flattening and blockading Gaza is creating a humanitarian crisis, so public sympathy moves away from a country that just days ago saw its young men, women, children and even babies being slaughtered en masse. A remarkable feat.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
The whole "stand with Gaza" thing without a word about the Jewish victims of Hamas's terror attack, however, is another matter... You can at least say you deplore the acts of depravity committed by Hamas, before going on to support the end of the siege in Gaza on humanitarian grounds. But no, the silence on that one is deafening...
I've lost count of the number of totally unqualified "Stand with Israel" statements I've read over the last few days.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
Everywhere (worldwide) is hurting right now: Germany is hurting, the UK is hurting, the US is hurting.
The economic woes that are being suffered are largely a consequence of inflation returning after a close to quarter century gap, and people being hit by food costs and bills rising faster than incomes.
And to get on top of this inflation, central banks have increased interest rates, resulting in yet more pain to those with mortgages, or those who hope to get on the property ladder.
But, yes, I grant you the comments about gender are almost certainly right. It's the Heirarchy of Needs: if you need food and shelter, then someone ranting about pronouns isn't going to go down well.
The UK (alongside Germany) is hurting more, though.
All Germany’s eggs were in the cheap-Russian-energy-to-manufacture-export-to-China basket.
All of the UK’s are in the keep-inflating-houseprices-and-fuck-off-actual-economic-growth.
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
From whom !
Yes we want our country back from the Tories !
Annette Dunning is a Parliamentary Assistant to Therese Coffey. They should get together and compose position papers. We could call it "The Dunning-Kruger Effect".
. . . Whether dining at The Mirabelle, dancing at Annabel’s or drinking in any number of the city’s other swank spots, exuberant, eternal London has always something to offer, even if you do not really want it or should not in all conscience accept it. And when the suburbs are silenced and stilled, Soho, the ‘dilly and the central strip remain alive and kicking well after dawn has cracked and the street cleaners are cruising the pavements.
But are there better places to greet the morning? Better than the asphalt jungle choking with the noise and the heat and the merriment of what we care to call civilisation? Where there is a quieter pace and a slower, more organic order whose drumbeat is dictated by the rhythm of nature and not the second set at Ronnie Scott’s? Well, of course there are such places, and they can be found far beyond the broker belt of the Home Counties and deep in the heart of pastoral England. . . .
. . . The garish neon of the city might excite, but the natural pulse of the country serves to soothe. Sitting quietly in such places one finds peace. Peace, away from all the wearisome wokery, to work with greater awareness. Peace to think things through with more focus and lucidity then sleep the more soundly. . . .
Seems a nigh on certainty Starmer will be the PM after the next GE.
So that'll be 14 years of power for the Tories, having followed 13 years for Labour and prior to that 18 years for the blue team.
So... judging by historic principles the next Tory PM will be back in around 2037 or 8.
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
The long run of Labour government from 1997 to 2010 was mostly down to the popularity of Tony Blair and for most of their run they had a good economy yielding plenty of revenue so they could spend on pubic services and people were quickly able to see the results.
Neither of these factors will be true in the 2024>2029 Parliament.
The Conservatives could get back within one term IMO, but a lot will depend on how they react to being in opposition. If they spin off to the hard right (as Labour ten to spring off to the hard left when they lose powert) they will consign themselves to a decade or more in Opposition.
Depends more on the economy. Thatcher was considered the hard right candidate when she won the leadership in 1975, yet 5 years later because of the poor economy she beat the more centrist Callaghan.
Even if the Tories had elected the centrist Clarke in 1997 Blair would still have been re elected comfortably in 2001 as he and Brown managed the economy relatively well in their first term.
Remember too even Foot and Ed Miliband had poll leads initially despite being the leftwing candidates for the Labour leadership due to the economic situation
I thought Maggie was pretty "centrist" in her early years (advocating EEC membership, etc?)
Thatcher was well right of where Heath had been, certainly on the economy and immigration and even right of where Whitelaw would have been.
She was considered unelectable in 1975
Bullshit. If she had been considered unelectable the Tory MPs would never have voted her leader.
The Old Guard and Wets didn't, they largely voted for Heath and Whitelaw.
It was the party right that got her elected. The media coverage against her initially saw her as unelectable and lightweight and extreme and Callaghan was expected to beat her comfortably
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
Everywhere (worldwide) is hurting right now: Germany is hurting, the UK is hurting, the US is hurting.
The economic woes that are being suffered are largely a consequence of inflation returning after a close to quarter century gap, and people being hit by food costs and bills rising faster than incomes.
And to get on top of this inflation, central banks have increased interest rates, resulting in yet more pain to those with mortgages, or those who hope to get on the property ladder.
But, yes, I grant you the comments about gender are almost certainly right. It's the Heirarchy of Needs: if you need food and shelter, then someone ranting about pronouns isn't going to go down well.
The UK (alongside Germany) is hurting more, though.
All Germany’s eggs were in the cheap-Russian-energy-to-manufacture-export-to-China basket.
All of the UK’s are in the keep-inflating-houseprices-and-fuck-off-actual-economic-growth.
Germany paid no less for Russian gas than anyone else.
That this story persists on PB, from otherwise intelligent posters, is staggering.
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
From whom !
Yes we want our country back from the Tories !
Another MP who thinks his priorities are the peoples priorities.
This is what happens when a party has been in power too long. Crazy infighting breaks out: are we unpopular because we're too pure, or because we aren't pure enough?
Voters are rarely impressed.
And they don’t actually ask the voters or rely on feedback like in the post from Northern Monkey.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
NYT live blog - House Speaker Election - Jordan Presses Ahead With Vote Despite Stubborn Opposition
The House was set to hold another speaker vote on Friday, the third one this week. Representative Jim Jordan was expected to fall short once again.
> Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a consistent no vote on Jordan, said walking into the chamber that he expected opposition to grow if Jordan pursued ballot after ballot. “There is a time when you have to put country above ego and self,” he said, adding that Jordan simply doesn’t have the votes to win. “It gets to a point where this now becomes just an egofest.”
> In fact, holdouts have said efforts to pressure them into voting for Jordan are only strengthening their resolve. They’re facing a great deal of pressure from outside groups right now, including death threats. And a conservative group that helped organize the Jan. 6 rally at the Capitol is working to organize rallies around the country outside the offices of the holdout lawmakers.
It has come to my knowledge that the stuffed animal shown in my earlier post can be interpreted as a symbol for antisemitism, which I was completely unaware of. The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
There are a few points here. Size - 70sqm is the minimum possible size for a 2 storey house under the technical housing standards. Most family sized houses are more like 90-100 sqm. The build cost calculator you linked to is from a website marketing tradesmans services. A better one is on the website 'build-it' linked to below. But the figure of £1700/£1800 sqm is generally possible in theory in the North. The increase though is exponential with 10 years ago, they have doubled.
Build costs are only technically about building, you still have to resolve other issues, like services, in addition to land. Obviously there are planning payments/contributions as well IE through the community infrastructure levy, but if you remove them, how do you fund for the new roads/motorways?
Wes Streeting is seriously impressive, a proper street fighter. A great media combatant and commensurate performer.
He still hasn’t deleted this tweet though, trying to make it look like he was having cancer treatment whilst the Downing St garden party attendees were hungover. I can’t help but think less of him for it
6-day hangover? A bit of a stretch, I guess... But is the general point undermined by not being in hospital at the exact same time the party took place?
It was the same date in a different year. I think that does undermine the point
2021: Downing Street parties took place on the evening before the funeral of Prince Philip on 17 April; Wes Streeting’s operation to remove a cancerous kidney was on 21 May.
Somebody behaved badly but it wasn’t Streeting.
They were nursing hangovers over a month later?
More likely that he has confused the Garden party on 20th May 2020 with his operation on 21st May 2021 I would say. Especially as that party was first reported the day of Streeting’s tweet.
3. (figurative) An unpleasant relic left from prior events.
It’s not difficult for me, you’ve just got this 100% wrong. You can’t admit someone on your side has made a mistake or acted in bad faith
11th Jan 2022 No 10 Garden Party on 20th May 2020 reported
Streeting sees this and makes the mistake of thinking “Aye aye, that’s the day before I had my cancer op, this’ll make em look bad” and tweets said tweet
“ While Downing Street nursed their hangovers, on 21st May I went into hospital alone for major surgery to remove my kidney cancer. It was the loneliest I have ever felt in my life and worse for my family.
Others had it much worse.
Johnson’s double standards add insult to injury.”
Lots of people tell him the two things were in different years, his cancer op being on May 21st 2021, but he doesn’t delete the tweet
So he’s either unable to admit his error, or sees political gain in letting people think something untrue is indeed true, using his illness l as a currency
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
Currently there is an affordability pause and a number of people selling up from the amateur landlord thing. So house prices are going down a bit.
The problem is that that this is finite. The population pressure is continuous. House price increases will resume - note that there is no drop in the rental sector prices.
Inflation can provide a useful "cover" for erosion of price. As in "My house went up 2% last year" - but inflation was 5%. What it won't do is erode underlying prices.
If we don't seriously increase supply, we will simply have 15% price rises (or whatever) with 5% inflation.
Here we differ. IMO the property bubble has popped. Why? Because interest rates have tripled and are staying that way for a long time. So even without fixing the supply side we'll be seeing considerably lower house prices and they won't be going bonzer again anytime soon.
BUT this doesn't mean I disagree about the need to build more house. We do. And building more will (all else being equal) be a healthy downwards factor on prices. So I don't disagree. I just think you're simplifying and overegging with the 'it's all about supply' mantra.
Supply is key. So are interest rates. So is Social Housing.
The property bubble hasn't burst in terms of people actually being able to afford a home (rented or bought).
What we have is a change in the maximum price the market will bear. Because people only have so much money. The price is still unaffordable for many, many people.
Ok I can go with the essence of that. We're heading to a new (lower) place on house prices because one of the key factors (rates) has been sorted. That's good. It's a win. But it leaves some other key factors unresolved. Eg Supply - we have to build more. And the Private/Public mix - we need a bigger and better Social Housing sector. You don't agree about the Social Housing and we disagree about Supply but only in the sense that I think you simplify and overegg on that score. It is certainly very important. Not a bad level of communion there really.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
I don't see how you can have a 60 sq meters semi detached house. That's only about 20-25 sq meters of usable space per floor.
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
I see the government has abandoned the nutrient neutrality changes that were supposed to enable up to “140,000” houses, per FT.
They had no chance of getting it through. Makes sense. Shame though.
Why not?
I don’t know enough about the policy to have an opinion on its merits, but I do know this was the only remaining housing policy from Rishi Sunak and a supposed Brexit dividend to boot. A big deal was made of it.
And now, like the railway promises allegedly accompanying the abandonment of HS2, it’s melted away like tears in the rain.
The HOL voted it down. I agree it shouldn't have been abandoned, just one more disgrace from this shitshow of an administration.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
This is why National Renewal is a good slogan for Labour. The sense that for years now we've been run by immature machinating showboating incompetents and meanwhile the place has gone to pot. I think people are looking for an end to that far more than any specific policy or other.
Here are composite PMIs (which are a good proxy for economic conditions) by country:
Singapore 54.2 Ireland 52.1 Japan 52.1 Australia 51.5 China 50.9 USA 50.2 Spain 50.1 Italy 49.2 Brazil 49.0 UK 48.5 Euro area 47.2 Germany 46.4 Sweden 45.4 France 44.1
Above 50 is growth. Normally, you'd expect to see most of Europe in the 53-54 range, the US in the 55-56 range, and China north of 60.
Everywhere is suffering right now. (Except maybe Singapore. And I guess Ireland is doing 'ok'.)
"Hamas does not kill civilians on purpose. It focuses on the soldiers. Period."
Yeah, right. That's exactly what we saw a fortnight ago.
And as for hostages: "We will use them to empty the (Israeli) prisons".
This is the sort of person Corbyn was friends with. Someone who is willing to see the entire region explode into violence that could kill millions as long as he gets rid of the Jews.
I am very old, but I have just realised that if Labour does win the next general election (as I believe they now could) it will only be the second time in my life that Labour has transitioned into government. And I am really old.
Trains through Loughborough to Leicester all cancelled. The wrong water on the track.
Everything OK on the old TfL services - London escaped the worst of last night's and this morning's rain., though it did rain steadily overnight.
The robustness of very long-standing stuff is, I think, a really good indicator of any substantial climate change peril.
The London Underground must be hugely fragile, but so far they've been fine (I know it's unfashionable to say such a thing, but there might just be good management going on in this respect)
Huge numbers of Victorian property owners must, like me, look at their single paned large sash-windows and worry that even modest storms might be a risk. In the morning though all is fine.
If climate change really hits then we'll find all sorts of things failing.
In DC, Jim Jordan being nominated for Speaker by . . . wait for it . . . Kevin McCarthy.
This oughta be good . . . in some manner of speak(er)ing.
Remind me of how, in the May 1940 "Norway Debate" in HoC, the closing speech in support of Neville Chamberlain was give by . . . Winston Churchill.
Except that back then, WSC was on the way up . . . whereas KMcC is on the path to . . .
McCarthy knows that Jordan will not be elected Speaker, and is therefore sensibly burnishing his conservative credentials by nominating him. If Jordan continues to lose votes, then the (eventually) the Republicans will be forced to look for a compromise candidate who with the impeccable credentials of having backed Jordan.
"Tamworth and Mid Beds by-election defeats tell us nothing, No 10 insiders claim. Rishi Sunak plans to double down on his political strategy despite a double by-election blow casting doubt on his election plans.
"A source told i: 'What did we learn? Absolutely nothing. Polls show retention at around 60 per cent and minimal switching, which is exactly what happened. There is no great meaning to be taken from it.'"
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
I don't see how you can have a 60 sq meters semi detached house. That's only about 20-25 sq meters of usable space per floor.
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
I lived in a 3-bed, 1930s, semi-detached house that was about 65sqm.
The bedrooms were pretty small, there was zero storage space, and various other compromises had to be made.
I'd hope for more nearly one hundred years on, but owning a shit home is better than renting a shit place.
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
If the Tories have any sense they'd do well to listen to this kind of analysis. Mind you, if the Tories had any sense neither they nor the country would be in the absolute state they are now.
Forgive my ignorance but I've been mulling over some posts from yesterday. Am I correct in thinking that on election day party activists call on people they think may support their party to check that they have voted and if not urge them to?
I am very old, but I have just realised that if Labour does win the next general election (as I believe they now could) it will only be the second time in my life that Labour has transitioned into government. And I am really old.
Tha’rt nowt but a lad. I’ve seen four. And several times they held on at the next election.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Piss easy to do.
The cost of land with planning consent is the biggest cost in the entire project, the cost of land without planning consent is a fraction of the cost. Eliminate that unnecessary cost differential, and you can eliminate a major cost of the building.
Eliminate the requirement to get planning consent, you can eliminate all the consultations, legal fees, massive binders of documents required, years of delays as neighbours and Councillors unnecessarily get involved in other people's business.
The cost of labour is a major cost of all development. The cost of housing is the biggest cost of living for that labour. House costs come down, living costs come down, labour can be more affordable.
In the very hypothetical scenario where your proposed abolition of the planning system works out (although we actually have established in previous exchanges that you are not abolishing planning, you want a liberalised system of zoning with design codes)... the cost of a 100 sqm house will still be about £350,000
£50,000 land with services. £250,000 total build cost at £2500 /sqm £50,000 developer profit (16.5%)
I keep making the point on here that the biggest problem is build costs... labour is a big part of it but but regulation is a big factor also. It is the same thing all over Europe. if you look at the costs of new housing where there is a surplus of land ie in Scandinavia, the cost of new build away from premium locations is in line with what I estimated above. And that is even with high tech, low labour modular building.
In the UK there were high development land values for many years based on high prices and low build costs but now we prices have gone down and build costs gone up
Considering that houses are getting built and sold for below £200k near me even with the planning system as it is, I think your numbers are complete bullshit.
Build costs are not remotely what you claim they are.
I think these houses sold for £200k are low spec starter homes by volume house builders, probably entry level (so about 60-70sqm), normally semi detached. This pricing is essentially a product of massive economies of scale in terms of land acquisition and build costs, they can build housing for £1.5k per sqm, even less. So obviously these players are not the enemy, they are key to any solution to the housing crisis, because their business model enables them to build for far, far cheaper than any self or custom build project.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
60-70sqm is plenty for a starter home, as is semi-detached, and even self-builds (with hired trades) can be £1400 as per the source I shared.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
I don't see how you can have a 60 sq meters semi detached house. That's only about 20-25 sq meters of usable space per floor.
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
Here are composite PMIs (which are a good proxy for economic conditions) by country:
Singapore 54.2 Ireland 52.1 Japan 52.1 Australia 51.5 China 50.9 USA 50.2 Spain 50.1 Italy 49.2 Brazil 49.0 UK 48.5 Euro area 47.2 Germany 46.4 Sweden 45.4 France 44.1
Above 50 is growth. Normally, you'd expect to see most of Europe in the 53-54 range, the US in the 55-56 range, and China north of 60.
Everywhere is suffering right now. (Except maybe Singapore. And I guess Ireland is doing 'ok'.)
How trustworthy are PMI statistics in relation to Ireland? I know a lot of other economic statistics for Ireland are distorted by the large US corporate sector.
Here are composite PMIs (which are a good proxy for economic conditions) by country:
Singapore 54.2 Ireland 52.1 Japan 52.1 Australia 51.5 China 50.9 USA 50.2 Spain 50.1 Italy 49.2 Brazil 49.0 UK 48.5 Euro area 47.2 Germany 46.4 Sweden 45.4 France 44.1
Above 50 is growth. Normally, you'd expect to see most of Europe in the 53-54 range, the US in the 55-56 range, and China north of 60.
Everywhere is suffering right now. (Except maybe Singapore. And I guess Ireland is doing 'ok'.)
How trustworthy are PMI statistics in relation to Ireland? I know a lot of other economic statistics for Ireland are distorted by the large US corporate sector.
"Hamas does not kill civilians on purpose. It focuses on the soldiers. Period."
Yeah, right. That's exactly what we saw a fortnight ago.
And as for hostages: "We will use them to empty the (Israeli) prisons".
This is the sort of person Corbyn was friends with. Someone who is willing to see the entire region explode into violence that could kill millions as long as he gets rid of the Jews.
Corbyn enjoyed a "takeaway dinner" with the person being interviewed.
"Tamworth and Mid Beds by-election defeats tell us nothing, No 10 insiders claim. Rishi Sunak plans to double down on his political strategy despite a double by-election blow casting doubt on his election plans.
The strategy, which I assume is culture war bollocks for gap toothed doylums to squeeze Refuk, isn't working.
Is the 'learning' from this for sunak.xlsx that he needs to go further?
"Tamworth and Mid Beds by-election defeats tell us nothing, No 10 insiders claim. Rishi Sunak plans to double down on his political strategy despite a double by-election blow casting doubt on his election plans.
"A source told i: 'What did we learn? Absolutely nothing. Polls show retention at around 60 per cent and minimal switching, which is exactly what happened. There is no great meaning to be taken from it.'"
The 40% who can't be bothered to vote aren't rampant right wingers they are likely to be middle of the road centralist voters who aren't that bothered by SKS winning and Labour being in power from 2024 onwards.
So why on earth are the Tory party seeking right wing voters at the expense of the middle of the road centralist former Tory voter...
Interesting post from ConHome. I very rarely go there and schadenfreude is a terrible emotion but it's been a long 13 years so I beg your understanding...
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
Everywhere (worldwide) is hurting right now: Germany is hurting, the UK is hurting, the US is hurting.
The economic woes that are being suffered are largely a consequence of inflation returning after a close to quarter century gap, and people being hit by food costs and bills rising faster than incomes.
And to get on top of this inflation, central banks have increased interest rates, resulting in yet more pain to those with mortgages, or those who hope to get on the property ladder.
But, yes, I grant you the comments about gender are almost certainly right. It's the Heirarchy of Needs: if you need food and shelter, then someone ranting about pronouns isn't going to go down well.
Your pointy-headed economist burble doesn't really matter though, does it? That quote is reportage. That's what people in the real world - in England, not California - are saying. The Tories have screwed it. The catalyst is Brexit. It hollowed them out, it delivered us Johnson and Truss, and people now associate it - and them - with economic decline and appalling, heartless, incompetent right-wingery. With swivel-eyed ideology. With cronyism, with PPE corruption. With that 20-odd year-old in the Lords. With rising mortgages. With half-empty shelves and less choice in the shops. With salad that's gone brown before you get it home. With a million and one irritancies, big and small.
You can come along here with your high-falutin' talk of inflation that baffles my humble arts grad brain, but the perception is set. The country thinks Brexit was a mistake. It is seen to have damaged the economy. The (half-arsed) attempt to deliver the unicorns has delivered us terrible politicians. It is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Conservatives. And it has disembowelled the Tory Party. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-moderate centre-right party. It is now the party of long-term decline of the NHS (and I have current, months long experience of this via a couple of relative's serious health woes). It is the party of shuttered shops in town centres, of Wilko closing. It is partygate and Truss. It is the party of everything rising except wages, in the real world, for real people.
Levelling-up has failed even more spectacularly than even I expected it would, even with the tiny amounts promised when compared with EU funding for areas like where I live, or like Cornwall.
Tangentially, the government and client media are also using a good crisis to studiously ignore the horrors, the damning revelations, that are coming from the Covid inquiry.
It seems to have gone quiet on Brexit. Its supporters want to move on, to ignore it. It's 'done'. Everyone's got inflation, haven't they? That is wrong - its baleful influence underpins everything. It has driven the incompetence, the indifference, the lies and obfuscations, the empty boosterism and the swing to the right we have seen over the past few years. That Brexit has failed and was a massive error has become the settled opinion amongst a large majority of everyone under 60. Labour will, eventually, gradually, with baby steps tip toe back to the EU. And it will be welcomed by most people. All those millions of people who resent what the cancer of Brexit has done to this country. Who resent their lost rights, who look on with horror on what this Conservative Party have begat since they went mad.
What idiot thought selling of social housing for peanuts was a good idea?
The idea of selling council stock was a good one.
Central government nicking most of the proceeds, and legislating to prevent councils building more to replace it was utter idiocy - motivated purely by Thatcher's dislike of local government. But then left unchanged by her successors.
The problem is not so much the lack of social housing as the lack of housing overall. Had much more been built, to meet demand, prices would never have soared as they have in both rental and purchase sectors.
You do need lots of properly funded social housing. If the residential property space is nearly all private sector you're too much in the hands of developers, financiers and landlords whose priorities are not aligned to what should be our national objective: a decent affordable place to live for everybody, homes as homes not money making instruments.
If you have a shortage of housing, then you will have people living in tiny, shitty properties. Plenty of evidence historically.
If you don't want that, do what the Victorians and Edwardians did. Build whole towns and suburbs, with actual space for people to live.
The ownership is next to immaterial - look at how much council accommodation is flipped into the rental sector.
We do need to increase supply - very much so - but doing only that won't solve the housing crisis. It will help a lot but it won't anywhere near meet the aspiration of a decent affordable home for everyone. The split between private and public sector is also important (if we do have this aspiration). We need a good sized, well funded social housing sector to serve people who can't afford to buy or rent in the private sector. There'll always be plenty of these (unless we're planning a radical overhaul of our whole economic model).
If you have adequate supply, prices will fall. A long way. Check out other countries which dot have housing shortages.
Trying to “wall off” public sector housing as cheaper just creates a subletting market.
I'll pass over your 2nd para (nitpicking imo) in order to agree strongly with the 1st - yes yes yes we must build build build. Increase supply wrt demand and all other things being equal prices will fall. Which we definitely want. It's a crazy unhealthy unfair situation we've allowed to develop.
Although prices are falling now, as it happens, not because of lots of new product but because we're into a new era of 5% money - triple what everyone had got used to. So it looks like we're getting those lower prices anyway. Fwiw I'm expecting a one third fall in real terms over the next 2 to 3 years, half in nominal terms, inflation doing the work for the other half.
If prices fall by a third, then supply is unlikely to increase - unless you can find ways of building for cheaper.
Perfectly possible to get increasing supply in a market with falling prices.
Which is why Panasonic, Sony etc are making televisions on a vast scale.
The new build sale market relies on properties being sold at a premium and a profit margin for the developer of 20% being achieved on the project, and also for them to take risks in doing it, being able to borrow money cheaply etc. None of these conditions are in place at the moment.
Yes, it's a great central point that we need to build far more houses but people are being a little too simplistic and evangelical in making out that (i) it's easy to do that with the private sector business model we have and (ii) that even if we do manage it the housing crisis gets voila solved. The government has to roll its sleeves up and get in there, acting for the long term, changing the way we look at and fund residential property.
Countries without housing shortages manage to build lots of properties. Therefore we need to do what those Dastardly Furrrineeers do.
We need to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of housing. Currently we have permissions stacking up. The reason is largely oligopoly in the property construction market. It is noticeable that in areas where there isn't that oligopoly and substitution is possible - flats in various areas of London - the throttling of the build process is much less evident.
Most don't explicit government intervention in the housing market to play games with price - apart from the usual planning stuff and some social housing.
Again, I 100% agree Supply is key - but there other important factors. We've touched on a few: Rates. Social Housing. Developers Business Practices. Private Sector Landlords. Financialization vs Place To Live. It's not just Supply. We have a particular (and rather weird) approach to the whole topic in this country. It reminds me of our private schools fetish slightly. I think it comes from the same place. I don't suppose you know what I'm talking about. I wonder if I do? Yes, I think so but one can never be sure.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.
Comments
But I don't want to make any unwarranted assumptions. Maybe you can't read or something.
And even with our unproductive building methods there is a lot to be gained from building 50+ houses of standardized design on a single plot...
https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1715333553691541820?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
A bit different to ridiculously claiming £350k as a minimum, and explains how developers are able to make a very healthy profit on £180-200k homes, they're making a fortune at those rates.
Of course deal with the consent issue and there would be no need for "developers" anymore, so "developer profit" would drop to £0.
Deal with the cost of land and consent and house prices would plummet.
DENVER — U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert is getting squeezed from both sides of the political aisle in the money race as she faces a growing field of challengers hoping to thwart her reelection next year.
Third-quarter fundraising totals reported in recent days in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District show the Republican incumbent was outraised by her most prominent Democratic foe, Adam Frisch, by a factor of 4-to-1. And Jeff Hurd, a Boebert challenger in next year’s GOP primary, posted sizable totals indicating he also might pose trouble for the two-term congresswoman.
Boebert’s haul for the period from July 1 to Sept. 30 was just shy of $854,000, according to the recent campaign finance reports. Earlier this month, before filing his full quarterly report, former Aspen city councilman Frisch, who narrowly lost to Boebert in 2022, touted a nearly $3.4 million haul during the same time frame.
Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney, collected just over $412,000 despite launching his campaign only in mid-August. . . .
Hurd has managed to gain the backing of several prominent Colorado Republicans, including Bruce Benson, a former University of Colorado president; John Suthers, the former Colorado Springs mayor and state attorney general; Daniel Ritchie, a former University of Denver chancellor; and former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown.
n recent weeks, several Republican county commissioners on the Western Slope have broken with their party’s incumbent to throw in with Hurd, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The parties’ primaries are set for June 25, with the general election in November 2024. . . .
Frisch has raised more than $7.7 million since the beginning of the year, versus just over $2.4 million for Boebert. The congresswoman had $1.4 million in cash on hand at the start of the month, while Frisch’s war chest had more than $4.3 million.
Russ Andrews, a Republican engineer and financial adviser running to take on Boebert in next year’s primary, raised nearly $34,000 in donations during the third quarter, in addition to about $255,000 he loaned or gave his campaign, according to his finance report.
On the Democratic side, Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout garnered just over $100,000 after announcing her run in late July. Several other candidates from both sides of the aisle reported less significant or nominal sums.
The Cook Political Report rates the race, which is likely to be one of the country’s most closely watched next year, as a “toss up.”
A Democrat hasn’t won the district since John Salazar won reelection 15 years ago. Salazar lost his seat in 2010 to former Rep. Scott Tipton, a Republican who served five terms before his surprise loss in the 2020 GOP primary to Boebert.
That's the sense I get.
Apparently the Tories can stage a comeback if they concentrate on sex education in schools , as in likely saying its corrupting the children , gender issues etc .
And apparently “ ordinary people wanted their country back “.
From whom !
Yes we want our country back from the Tories !
Houses are expensive due to land and consent, not due to building costs. The idea a house needs to be £350k is absolutely insane.
This shows what we have lost from losing the classified football results from our collective consciousness.
I don’t know enough about the policy to have an opinion on its merits, but I do know this was the only remaining housing policy from Rishi Sunak and a supposed Brexit dividend to boot. A big deal was made of it.
And now, like the railway promises allegedly accompanying the abandonment of HS2, it’s melted away like tears in the rain.
Build cost data in general is all well known, it is in a BCIS index, reflected in peer reviewed viability statements for new developments published online by local authorities.
Having been involved in canvassing in Tamworth, aside from the obvious disgust with the conduct of Pincher, the complaints I heard were overwhelming about the lies and incompetence of Johnson and Truss, the failure to deliver public services and, above all, the struggle to survive week by week that is not a product of inflation but a pre-existing issue to do with lack of growth, wage stagnation and taxation. People are also feeling much bolder about describing Brexit as a mistake. One man told me that we should "grow up and stop exaggerating gender stuff".
No-one mentioned immigration or net zero to me. That's not to say it wasn't raised. Few felt any love for Rishi.
I see a lot of posters here demanding more action on immigration and a move to cutting the State. I think that Starmer would welcome that. Much as many here would like it to be, the United Kingdom electorate are not right wing to the extent that some seem to hope and now that the economic pain, waiting lists and deteroting infrastructure is affecting not just our traditional scapegoats people see the effects for themselves.
My own feeling is that 2024 is lost and that a lurch further right will lose 2029 too.
The issue is not traditional Conservative policy. The issues are gross incompetence amongst the current parliamentary party, a series of poor economic decisions (not least Brexit), the foolishness of giving power to Johnson and simple longevity in power.
https://conservativehome.com/2023/10/20/labour-wins-the-tamworth-and-mid-bedfordshire-by-elections/
Voters are rarely impressed.
So anywhere in the country a home ought to be affordable for £1500 * 60 = £90,000 build cost. Even making it 100sqm which is above the national average still means from £140,000 in build costs. Which includes parts and labour, including the profit on the labour, and would bring prices right back in line with historical norms.
If house prices are considerably higher than that, its because of problems elsewhere in the supply chain. Problems which can be fixed, like land & planning.
The whole "stand with Gaza" thing without a word about the Jewish victims of Hamas's terror attack, however, is another matter... You can at least say you deplore the acts of depravity committed by Hamas, before going on to support the end of the siege in Gaza on humanitarian grounds. But no, the silence on that one is deafening...
It’s completely unacceptable and if he doesn’t think that then he’s clearly not up to the job .
BUT this doesn't mean I disagree that we need to build more houses. We do. And building more will also be a healthy downwards factor on prices. So I don't disagree with you as such. I just think you're simplifying and overegging with the 'it's all about supply' mantra.
Supply is key. So are interest rates. So is Social Housing.
Indeed.
Here’s a NYT article about the art market slowly migrating to Paris. Sure, the art market is small, and sure, it’s the NYT.
But pinprick by pinprick, Britain is deflating.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/arts/design/paris-plus-art-fair.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The govt also fired up anger from various charities, lobbyists and groups like the RSPB.
The govt scheme proposed to replace it was actually an improvement on the current proposals.
The economic woes that are being suffered are largely a consequence of inflation returning after a close to quarter century gap, and people being hit by food costs and bills rising faster than incomes.
And to get on top of this inflation, central banks have increased interest rates, resulting in yet more pain to those with mortgages, or those who hope to get on the property ladder.
But, yes, I grant you the comments about gender are almost certainly right. It's the Heirarchy of Needs: if you need food and shelter, then someone ranting about pronouns isn't going to go down well.
Compare to ye olde pictures of steam engines roaring through floodwaters (yes, I know things were different and less electronic back then..)
https://twitter.com/colorized_pics/status/1469547545189916674
What we have is a change in the maximum price the market will bear. Because people only have so much money. The price is still unaffordable for many, many people.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12888462/
All Germany’s eggs were in the cheap-Russian-energy-to-manufacture-export-to-China basket.
All of the UK’s are in the keep-inflating-houseprices-and-fuck-off-actual-economic-growth.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/october-2023/pastoral-pleasures/
. . . Whether dining at The Mirabelle, dancing at Annabel’s or drinking in any number of the city’s other swank spots, exuberant, eternal London has always something to offer, even if you do not really want it or should not in all conscience accept it. And when the suburbs are silenced and stilled, Soho, the ‘dilly and the central strip remain alive and kicking well after dawn has cracked and the street cleaners are cruising the pavements.
But are there better places to greet the morning? Better than the asphalt jungle choking with the noise and the heat and the merriment of what we care to call civilisation? Where there is a quieter pace and a slower, more organic order whose drumbeat is dictated by the rhythm of nature and not the second set at Ronnie Scott’s? Well, of course there are such places, and they can be found far beyond the broker belt of the Home Counties and deep in the heart of pastoral England. . . .
. . . The garish neon of the city might excite, but the natural pulse of the country serves to soothe. Sitting quietly in such places one finds peace. Peace, away from all the wearisome wokery, to work with greater awareness. Peace to think things through with more focus and lucidity then sleep the more soundly. . . .
That this story persists on PB, from otherwise intelligent posters, is staggering.
Which means we should expect more hate and division peddling by this cesspit government.
Hopefully they lose more sane Tories and that costs them .
I hope it is sorted by the morning or our trip to the south coast could be somewhat buggered.
https://x.com/arash_tehran/status/1715354932595847322
NYT live blog - House Speaker Election - Jordan Presses Ahead With Vote Despite Stubborn Opposition
The House was set to hold another speaker vote on Friday, the third one this week. Representative Jim Jordan was expected to fall short once again.
> Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a consistent no vote on Jordan, said walking into the chamber that he expected opposition to grow if Jordan pursued ballot after ballot. “There is a time when you have to put country above ego and self,” he said, adding that Jordan simply doesn’t have the votes to win. “It gets to a point where this now becomes just an egofest.”
> In fact, holdouts have said efforts to pressure them into voting for Jordan are only strengthening their resolve. They’re facing a great deal of pressure from outside groups right now, including death threats. And a conservative group that helped organize the Jan. 6 rally at the Capitol is working to organize rallies around the country outside the offices of the holdout lawmakers.
And by extension, that clearly makes Greta Thunberg a Nazi too.
I apologise for ever doubting it. I must confess I didn't understand how the new social media logic worked!
https://live.house.gov/
House is in session, with quorum call in progress . . . at least in a manner of speak(er)ing!
Size - 70sqm is the minimum possible size for a 2 storey house under the technical housing standards. Most family sized houses are more like 90-100 sqm.
The build cost calculator you linked to is from a website marketing tradesmans services. A better one is on the website 'build-it' linked to below. But the figure of £1700/£1800 sqm is generally possible in theory in the North.
The increase though is exponential with 10 years ago, they have doubled.
Build costs are only technically about building, you still have to resolve other issues, like services, in addition to land. Obviously there are planning payments/contributions as well IE through the community infrastructure levy, but if you remove them, how do you fund for the new roads/motorways?
https://www.self-build.co.uk/build-cost-calculator/
11th Jan 2022
No 10 Garden Party on 20th May 2020 reported
Streeting sees this and makes the mistake of thinking “Aye aye, that’s the day before I had my cancer op, this’ll make em look bad” and tweets said tweet
“ While Downing Street nursed their hangovers, on 21st May I went into hospital alone for major surgery to remove my kidney cancer. It was the loneliest I have ever felt in my life and worse for my family.
Others had it much worse.
Johnson’s double standards add insult to injury.”
Lots of people tell him the two things were in different years, his cancer op being on May 21st 2021, but he doesn’t delete the tweet
So he’s either unable to admit his error, or sees political gain in letting people think something untrue is indeed true, using his illness l as a currency
Now, 60 sq meters is fine for an apartment/flat, but there you don't lose space to stairs.
As it happens, Cook was born in Melbourne, a very short distance away from Swarkestone, which we were mentioning earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cook
This oughta be good . . . in some manner of speak(er)ing.
Remind me of how, in the May 1940 "Norway Debate" in HoC, the closing speech in support of Neville Chamberlain was give by . . . Winston Churchill.
Except that back then, WSC was on the way up . . . whereas KMcC is on the path to . . .
Everywhere is suffering right now. (Except maybe Singapore. And I guess Ireland is doing 'ok'.)
"Hamas does not kill civilians on purpose. It focuses on the soldiers. Period."
Yeah, right. That's exactly what we saw a fortnight ago.
And as for hostages: "We will use them to empty the (Israeli) prisons".
This is the sort of person Corbyn was friends with. Someone who is willing to see the entire region explode into violence that could kill millions as long as he gets rid of the Jews.
He mentioned this several times today.
The London Underground must be hugely fragile, but so far they've been fine (I know it's unfashionable to say such a thing, but there might just be good management going on in this respect)
Huge numbers of Victorian property owners must, like me, look at their single paned large sash-windows and worry that even modest storms might be a risk. In the morning though all is fine.
If climate change really hits then we'll find all sorts of things failing.
I lived there for 8 years. Not long enough to start calling people "duck" fortunately.
Step forward Kevin McCarthy.
At least, that I think is McCarthy's plan.
"A source told i: 'What did we learn? Absolutely nothing. Polls show retention at around 60 per cent and minimal switching, which is exactly what happened. There is no great meaning to be taken from it.'"
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/by-election-results-nothing-labour-2701080
The bedrooms were pretty small, there was zero storage space, and various other compromises had to be made.
I'd hope for more nearly one hundred years on, but owning a shit home is better than renting a shit place.
Holiday jet skids off runway in heavy rain at Leeds Bradford Airport
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-67174117
Here is a 50 sqm house - with about 20% of the floor area being lost to stairs.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-jewish-chronicle/20180823/281651075962191
Is the 'learning' from this for sunak.xlsx that he needs to go further?
So why on earth are the Tory party seeking right wing voters at the expense of the middle of the road centralist former Tory voter...
You can come along here with your high-falutin' talk of inflation that baffles my humble arts grad brain, but the perception is set. The country thinks Brexit was a mistake. It is seen to have damaged the economy. The (half-arsed) attempt to deliver the unicorns has delivered us terrible politicians. It is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Conservatives. And it has disembowelled the Tory Party. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-moderate centre-right party. It is now the party of long-term decline of the NHS (and I have current, months long experience of this via a couple of relative's serious health woes). It is the party of shuttered shops in town centres, of Wilko closing. It is partygate and Truss. It is the party of everything rising except wages, in the real world, for real people.
Levelling-up has failed even more spectacularly than even I expected it would, even with the tiny amounts promised when compared with EU funding for areas like where I live, or like Cornwall.
Tangentially, the government and client media are also using a good crisis to studiously ignore the horrors, the damning revelations, that are coming from the Covid inquiry.
It seems to have gone quiet on Brexit. Its supporters want to move on, to ignore it. It's 'done'. Everyone's got inflation, haven't they? That is wrong - its baleful influence underpins everything. It has driven the incompetence, the indifference, the lies and obfuscations, the empty boosterism and the swing to the right we have seen over the past few years. That Brexit has failed and was a massive error has become the settled opinion amongst a large majority of everyone under 60. Labour will, eventually, gradually, with baby steps tip toe back to the EU. And it will be welcomed by most people. All those millions of people who resent what the cancer of Brexit has done to this country. Who resent their lost rights, who look on with horror on what this Conservative Party have begat since they went mad.
But ok, there's only one way to finish this, forget all of the above and let me say here and now with no clutter or caveat - we should BUILD MORE HOUSES. There.