I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves should abolish the OBR. Its record is terrible and it would buy her some breathing room.
She can’t but the manifesto and election promises should never have been made and need to be binned.
What we should have had is 3p on income tax and reform of council tax to be based on estimated house price alongside removal of stamp duty.
And vat should have been changed instead of employer ni
Doubt the valuation office could cope with that workload
Edit: also the issue with council tax is the amount raised not who pays it.
If you want to increase the amount raised by far and away the quickest and easiest way to do it is to add a couple of bands
A revaluation doesn’t change anything except for redistribution which should be done based on income tax (or an asset tax) not based on the vagaries of what house people live in
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves will deliver a Budget that reintroduces every possible means of taxation that isn't income tax.
From the window tax to a dog-ownership tax.
It will be hugely unpopular as a result. The risk is for Starmer that he stands by the hodgepodge, when he should have replaced Reeves after her first effort was such a dud. Standing by her puts him at huge risk that Mr Bond Market says he's had enough. In which case, they will both have to go.
The bond markets like Reeves because she views sticking to the borrowing rules as paramount - more important than her popularity inside the party or with the public. The bigger risk (from a market perspective) for Starmer is sacking her. If he did that and brought in somebody more creative, a person fizzing with vision and energy and radicalism, there'd be an immediate gilts crisis.
One of the victims killed in yesterday's attack at a synagogue in Manchester was shot by police during their attempts to bring the unarmed attacker under control, officers have said
This letter system the Tories have really is great for generating stories about leadership issues -- you can claim to be sending letters, to have them in hand ready to send at a moment's notice, or suggest that the head of the 1922 committee might already have more than he's admitting to, and it all feels much more concrete and headline worthy than mere mutterings of discontent.
One of the victims killed in yesterday's attack at a synagogue in Manchester was shot by police during their attempts to bring the unarmed attacker under control, officers have said
That’s old news (it was reported a lot yesterday) and it’s one of the problems of using guns, things go wrong
No, I know the bit about accidentally the shooting the poor sods behind the door. Its the RTE take on it. Shooting the "unarmed attacker". The bloke who just used a car to rammed a car into security staff, stabbed a load of people and had a (fake) explosives strapped to himself. It a massive stretch to call them unarmed.
They have rightly had taken to task via community notes etc.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.
Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.
Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.
Personally I would cut off child benefit at £100k or above household income.
I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it
The postwar social safety net including universal healthcare set out by the Attlee Government is a failed project in every way shape or form. The Conservative Government between 2010 and 2024 crashed the project to write-off status. Whether this was cock-up (Boris Johnson handing out cash and benefits like confetti) or conspiracy ( because they hated the hand put society) is debatable.
Nope.
The postwar plan was 100% based on rapid economic growth *and* demographics (lots of workers who remember to do the right thing and die before collecting benefits).
Everything to be paid out of current taxation.
A move to savings accounts for pensions was mooted in the 90s - reflected comprehensively on the Left.
Even then, with the vanishing of rapid growth (the rising tide reached the inherent level), less workers and the old refusing to die, it’s not dead.
Someone told the story, yesterday, of a relative who has been on a government pension (updated, indexed etc) longer than he worked in the job. Which was his whole working life up to retirement.
Which isn’t a bad thing, morally. It’s just that the fundamental premises behind the system do not work with such outcomes.
Another factor is the inability to cut our cloth according to the measure of what we have. Some little time ago, we had the story of two children in care. Due to special needs etc, a house was being purchase for their use and those of their 24/7 careers. The cost was estimated at £250,000 per child, per year. For life.
Now, I would say that is probably an improvement over the infamous Romanian orphanages. The problem is affordability.
We need to learn how to do functional without gold plating. Because if we say “Gold plated or nothing” - we may well get nothing.
I'm not the target audience for Jenrick, but I don't really understand what about him makes people think he would beso much better for the party, other than the natural inclination for people understandably disappointed by their inability to overcome Reform presuming that if they'd made a different choice last year things would be better now. Which is not much to base things on.
In fairness, the longer this goes on the bigger a problem it becomes.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
A fair point, although the public can be very odd in these things - Theresa May's Tories were leading the polls for a time despite her entire government being paralysed and unable to progress their signature policy and May basically being powerless.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
We need to go back to my suggestion. Council houses are awarded to Britons more on merit and less on need
Merit means a mix of: military service, no criminal record, English language, length of connection to Britain (eg those born here have more rights than recent entrants) - and so forth
This especially applies to social housing in desirable areas like central London
I think you might be living in a pre-1979 bubble. Rachmanesque landlords hold all the cards (and former council houses) now.
Bollox Pete, some councils still have houses run by themselves
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Your snark was equally snarky. Or doesn't that count?
The Russian tanker that was boarded by French, on suspicion of launching the drones over Denmark and possibly other countries in Scandinavia, has been released.
"The Boracay continues on its way. No drones were found."
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.
Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.
Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.
Personally I would cut off child benefit at £100k or above household income.
I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it
While not disagreeing (if anything I would set lower) you need to be wary of setting cliff edges. There are far too many already and specifically a big one at £100k where the effective tax rate is already 60% with the PA illumination. Better to try as much as possible to smooth the tax curve.
One of the victims killed in yesterday's attack at a synagogue in Manchester was shot by police during their attempts to bring the unarmed attacker under control, officers have said
It seems like a stray bullet went through the synagogue door. Bad luck rather than fault I suspect, but still really sucks for the police officer as well as the victim and his family
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves should abolish the OBR. Its record is terrible and it would buy her some breathing room.
She can’t but the manifesto and election promises should never have been made and need to be binned.
What we should have had is 3p on income tax and reform of council tax to be based on estimated house price alongside removal of stamp duty.
And vat should have been changed instead of employer ni
Doubt the valuation office could cope with that workload
Edit: also the issue with council tax is the amount raised not who pays it.
If you want to increase the amount raised by far and away the quickest and easiest way to do it is to add a couple of bands
A revaluation doesn’t change anything except for redistribution which should be done based on income tax (or an asset tax) not based on the vagaries of what house people live in
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
Tax based on third party estimates… right. Let’s appeal that PDQ
I'm not the target audience for Jenrick, but I don't really understand what about him makes people think he would beso much better for the party, other than the natural inclination for people understandably disappointed by their inability to overcome Reform presuming that if they'd made a different choice last year things would be better now. Which is not much to base things on.
In fairness, the longer this goes on the bigger a problem it becomes.
He says the quiet things out loud, which I think appeals to a number of people. I do think he’s possibly Burnhaming himself this time though, with the whole letters going in thing.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.
Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.
Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.
Personally I would cut off child benefit at £100k or above household income.
I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it
While not disagreeing (if anything I would set lower) you need to be wary of setting cliff edges. There are far too many already and specifically a big one at £100k where the effective tax rate is already 60% with the PA illumination. Better to try as much as possible to smooth the tax curve.
What a twit I am. They already do that.
In the age of computers, having cliff edges in the taxation system is ridiculous.
The issue of rich people and benefits is simple to fix - all income is taxable. This is actually cheaper to administer than multiple cliff edges, special cases etc.
One of the victims killed in yesterday's attack at a synagogue in Manchester was shot by police during their attempts to bring the unarmed attacker under control, officers have said
That’s old news (it was reported a lot yesterday) and it’s one of the problems of using guns, things go wrong
No, I know the bit about accidentally the shooting the poor sods behind the door. Its the RTE take on it. Shooting the "unarmed attacker". The bloke who just used a car to rammed a car into security staff, stabbed a load of people and had a (fake) explosives strapped to himself. It a massive stretch to call them unarmed.
They have rightly had taken to task via community notes etc.
It's very badly worded, but I think it's based on the police statement yesterday where they said that the terrorist wasn't armed with a gun, and therefore, logically, anyone injured/killed by a bullet wound had been shot by the police, inadvertently in the case of the two who were holding the door closed.
"Knife-wielding" would have been more accurate, but I can see how they got themselves into that muddle.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Your snark was equally snarky. Or doesn't that count?
Mine was a fairly generic snark at Labour having a preference for white male (and preferably north London and/or lawyers) as leader.
The response was to suggest that it was a factor in Tories performing poorly
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.
Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.
Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.
Personally I would cut off child benefit at £100k or above household income.
I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it
While not disagreeing (if anything I would set lower) you need to be wary of setting cliff edges. There are far too many already and specifically a big one at £100k where the effective tax rate is already 60% with the PA illumination. Better to try as much as possible to smooth the tax curve.
What a twit I am. They already do that.
In the age of computers, having cliff edges in the taxation system is ridiculous.
The issue of rich people and benefits is simple to fix - all income is taxable. This is actually cheaper to administer than multiple cliff edges, special cases etc.
I still think the Tories’ fortunes are pretty much out of their hands right now, but if I were Badenoch I think I would be using this conference to go heavy on policy, with a big emphasis on the economics.
Britain needs a sea change in how its fiscal policy is run. It is a huge weakness for Labour, and Reform aren’t serious in that space. If she goes hard on culture/immigration, she’s only amplifying the Reform message.
The Tories have got to have a USP, and it’s only really in the economic sphere where they’re going to find it.
I'm not the target audience for Jenrick, but I don't really understand what about him makes people think he would beso much better for the party, other than the natural inclination for people understandably disappointed by their inability to overcome Reform presuming that if they'd made a different choice last year things would be better now. Which is not much to base things on.
In fairness, the longer this goes on the bigger a problem it becomes.
He says the quiet things out loud, which I think appeals to a number of people. I do think he’s possibly Burnhaming himself this time though, with the whole letters going in thing.
Cynic that I am I wonder whether it is made up to weaken Jenrick and destabilise Kemi
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Your second para would also be a matter of revenge, surely, for Cleverly supporters - after the Delatestryl Manoeuvres in the Dark last time around.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
I still think the Tories’ fortunes are pretty much out of their hands right now, but if I were Badenoch I think I would be using this conference to go heavy on policy, with a big emphasis on the economics.
Britain needs a sea change in how its fiscal policy is run. It is a huge weakness for Labour, and Reform aren’t serious in that space. If she goes hard on culture/immigration, she’s only amplifying the Reform message.
The Tories have got to have a USP, and it’s only really in the economic sphere where they’re going to find it.
Yes, circumstances are bad for them and they need some luck frankly, so whether they are going to return to top two status or not, if they are to survive at all they need to make some choices about direction.
Much as I deride have too much ideology, and I don't think you can have a completely consistent political ideology, you do need something reasonably coherent and distinct for the longer term.
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves should abolish the OBR. Its record is terrible and it would buy her some breathing room.
She can’t but the manifesto and election promises should never have been made and need to be binned.
What we should have had is 3p on income tax and reform of council tax to be based on estimated house price alongside removal of stamp duty.
And vat should have been changed instead of employer ni
Doubt the valuation office could cope with that workload
Edit: also the issue with council tax is the amount raised not who pays it.
If you want to increase the amount raised by far and away the quickest and easiest way to do it is to add a couple of bands
A revaluation doesn’t change anything except for redistribution which should be done based on income tax (or an asset tax) not based on the vagaries of what house people live in
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
Tax based on third party estimates… right. Let’s appeal that PDQ
Um where did I say third party estimates should be used, I said models to estimate current prices exist.
Plenty of methods exist that could be used where market data can be used to remove appeals.
Equally from memory domestic council tax appeals are taking over a year for reasons that are hilarious
We all know the phases the media response goes through to all of these events. The only thing that changes is the speed we transition through them.
My favourite part of media cycles increasing in speed is sometimes you get the 'We need to be careful not to overreact to X' before there's even been a proper reaction to X, or such fear about how a reaction possibly might go too far, so best not to have one at all.
We need to go back to my suggestion. Council houses are awarded to Britons more on merit and less on need
Merit means a mix of: military service, no criminal record, English language, length of connection to Britain (eg those born here have more rights than recent entrants) - and so forth
This especially applies to social housing in desirable areas like central London
I think you might be living in a pre-1979 bubble. Rachmanesque landlords hold all the cards (and former council houses) now.
I think you are in a pre-2005 (Housing Act) * bubble. Never mind all the ones that have come in since, including the one due in the next month or four.
I'd say read it and the regulations, but that alone would take days, and that and the case law would take weeks to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
The first time I seriously applied myself to rental regulation was to the first course given to lettings agency staff - even 15-20 years ago it was 600 pages of notes for a one week course, and much of that was summaries and links out to other sources.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
That white male leaders are intrinsically more capable than either BAME or women
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves should abolish the OBR. Its record is terrible and it would buy her some breathing room.
She can’t but the manifesto and election promises should never have been made and need to be binned.
What we should have had is 3p on income tax and reform of council tax to be based on estimated house price alongside removal of stamp duty.
And vat should have been changed instead of employer ni
Doubt the valuation office could cope with that workload
Edit: also the issue with council tax is the amount raised not who pays it.
If you want to increase the amount raised by far and away the quickest and easiest way to do it is to add a couple of bands
A revaluation doesn’t change anything except for redistribution which should be done based on income tax (or an asset tax) not based on the vagaries of what house people live in
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
Tax based on third party estimates… right. Let’s appeal that PDQ
Um where did I say third party estimates should be used, I said models to estimate current prices exist.
Plenty of methods exist that could be used where market data can be used to remove appeals.
Equally from memory domestic council tax appeals are taking over a year for reasons that are hilarious
So not the VOA or third party models. The CT valuations date back to 1992.
Remember the discussion of the plod won't check back more than 2hrs for bike thefts because too time consuming checking CCTV or something...
Announcing RF-DETR Seg: the new SoTA for real-time instance segmentation. It achieves huge accuracy gains (+8 mAP) over the best YOLO models with similar speed and is a 10-100x speed improvement over prior Transformer-based segmentation models while maintaining similar accuracy.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
That white male leaders are intrinsically more capable than either BAME or women
That is precisely what I did not say.
I said that I believe that Tories choosing BAME leaders has been a factor in some Tories switching to Reform. If you disagree with that I am happy to debate it but don't twist what I wrote..
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Just having a look at my local Social Housing organisation, there are mixed development where there are renters, owners and shared ownership. So there may be a confusion between 'Council' (which doesn't exist) and 'Social Housing' - and then a further confusion between rent, owner or shared ownership. But like all of these soundbites, it's the trigger rather than the facts that count.
Anyway shared ownership, part own, part rent is limited to those earning under £90K. So renting will be a lesser amount than that. But you'd have to establish the facts first which are often missing or misinterpreted when feelings are running high.
(This is England in my comment.)
Yes, that confusion is real. It is mainly around Councils opting to "ALMO" their housing, and also around whether the Social Provider doing the housing is a local one, or a regional operation. Distinctions are not clear in lots of stats.
My Council Ashfield built 77 council houses and acquired 15 in 23-24, towards a target of 200 in the current 3 year (?) term. They are targeting land they already own, including playing fields and recs deemed to be above the minimum required. Locals are not happy about that policy, but it's also Ashfield Independents trying to strengthen themselves against RefUK.
Small numbers, but it's a movement. AFAICS there is no reason why the same cannot be applied to "Developers Social Quota" housing, which last time I checked was 10% to 40% here depending on area.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
We all know the phases the media response goes through to all of these events. The only thing that changes is the speed we transition through them.
This may be a record tho. They’ve entirely skipped the cursory bit where they fleetingly reference “islamism” before swiftly moving on to blaming racism, America, Britain, white people, cockneys, Nigel Farage and bigoted sellers of Somerset cider. Now it doesn’t even get the tiny passing glance
Met office says UK provisionally broke lowest ever October pressure reading on land.
947.9
What does that mean to a layman ?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
It means that the boffins who said that even smallish temperature increases would lead to more and stormier storms seem to be getting the big picture about right.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
That white male leaders are intrinsically more capable than either BAME or women
I think you are misunderstanding and pointing your charge at racism/misogyny at the wrong person. He is not the one being racist or having misogyny views. He is pointing out that the reason for defections may be due to some others having those views.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes
If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it
Met office says UK provisionally broke lowest ever October pressure reading on land.
947.9
What does that mean to a layman ?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
It means that the boffins who said that even smallish temperature increases would lead to more and stormier storms seem to be getting the big picture about right.
Well.. I think there is some suggestion that there will be fewer storms, but the storms that happen will be stronger.
Met office says UK provisionally broke lowest ever October pressure reading on land.
947.9
What does that mean to a layman ?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
We've all been looking at numbers around about 1000 for pressure on weather charts for more than half a century, so there is a feel for it even if not a technical knowledge.
Is there a drinking establishment called the ISOBAR anywhere?
There used to be an Isobar in the Isokon Flats in Lawn Road (near Belsize Park tube) from 1937 near where I lived in South Hampstead, but the last I am aware of that being in place was soon after the war.
Met office says UK provisionally broke lowest ever October pressure reading on land.
947.9
What does that mean to a layman ?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
It means that the boffins who said that even smallish temperature increases would lead to more and stormier storms seem to be getting the big picture about right.
Last night's episode has been pulled from iplayer. Funnily enough, I only finished watching it this morning.
Any idea why?
It's alleged that HIGNFY made allegations about who was going to profit from the government ID scheme.
The allegations are all over social media, but are allegedly bollocks.
Allegedly.
Not allegedly - the id card is an extension of the card used by migrants to demonstrate they have the right to work.
That is part of the one login system that is in an in house Government system (need to check but my quick research says it’s a GDS system so developed by civil servants and hosted in AWS) so no 3rd party is likely to be involved
When I was at uni 30 years ago, the uni were exceptionally helpful wrt my health problems at the time. And when a friend had a collapsed lung during an exam (*) they were also excellent in fairly dealing with the repercussions of his ill-health.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.
Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.
Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.
Personally I would cut off child benefit at £100k or above household income.
I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it
While not disagreeing (if anything I would set lower) you need to be wary of setting cliff edges. There are far too many already and specifically a big one at £100k where the effective tax rate is already 60% with the PA illumination. Better to try as much as possible to smooth the tax curve.
What a twit I am. They already do that.
In the age of computers, having cliff edges in the taxation system is ridiculous.
The issue of rich people and benefits is simple to fix - all income is taxable. This is actually cheaper to administer than multiple cliff edges, special cases etc.
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves should abolish the OBR. Its record is terrible and it would buy her some breathing room.
She can’t but the manifesto and election promises should never have been made and need to be binned.
What we should have had is 3p on income tax and reform of council tax to be based on estimated house price alongside removal of stamp duty.
And vat should have been changed instead of employer ni
Doubt the valuation office could cope with that workload
Edit: also the issue with council tax is the amount raised not who pays it.
If you want to increase the amount raised by far and away the quickest and easiest way to do it is to add a couple of bands
A revaluation doesn’t change anything except for redistribution which should be done based on income tax (or an asset tax) not based on the vagaries of what house people live in
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
Tax based on third party estimates… right. Let’s appeal that PDQ
Isn't the easiest way to have the French system: self declaration, but the government can buy anyone's home for 125% of stated value.
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
As they are allowed to.
The government really shouldn't be getting involved
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
That's like boasting that you have gonorrhoea instead of syphilis.
TSE will be pleased to know I had to spellcheck that.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
That white male leaders are intrinsically more capable than either BAME or women
I think you are misunderstanding and pointing your charge at racism/misogyny at the wrong person. He is not the one being racist or having misogyny views. He is pointing out that the reason for defections may be due to some others having those views.
We're not totally rational. None of us.
All of us have a fairly hefty "what do I think of the cut of their jib" factor in evaluating other people. To the extent that it causes us to make suboptimal decisions, it's worth trying to factor that out if we can.
There's a massive, near 180 degrees, difference between acknowledging that those views exist (even in ourselves) and acting on them whilst denying them.
Losing the racist vote probably did cost Sunak a percent or two. The sexist vote might well have been enough to tip the balance in 2016, 2020 and 2024 in America.
How a party should deal with those instincts (which, to repeat, we all have in different ways and none of us are in control of) is one of the things that makes politics difficult.
One person with knowledge of the pre-budget debate in Downing Street said: “There’s a political risk that No 10 are increasingly worried about, that we’re dying a slow death by the manifesto pledges, and the budget will look like a hodgepodge.”
Reeves remains firmly committed to the manifesto promises, however, according to colleagues, and is not asking officials to cost how much specific tax-raising measures that would involve breaching them in November’s budget might raise.
Having carried out a stocktake of its productivity forecasts over the summer, the OBR is understood to have presented Reeves with a significantly more pessimistic preliminary growth forecast last month.
Reeves should abolish the OBR. Its record is terrible and it would buy her some breathing room.
She can’t but the manifesto and election promises should never have been made and need to be binned.
What we should have had is 3p on income tax and reform of council tax to be based on estimated house price alongside removal of stamp duty.
And vat should have been changed instead of employer ni
Doubt the valuation office could cope with that workload
Edit: also the issue with council tax is the amount raised not who pays it.
If you want to increase the amount raised by far and away the quickest and easiest way to do it is to add a couple of bands
A revaluation doesn’t change anything except for redistribution which should be done based on income tax (or an asset tax) not based on the vagaries of what house people live in
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
Tax based on third party estimates… right. Let’s appeal that PDQ
Isn't the easiest way to have the French system: self declaration, but the government can buy anyone's home for 125% of stated value.
Think how much easier it would be to do compulsory purchase - would remove all complaints in one swoop
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
It depends on the philosophy applied to social housing - are they permanent communities, temporary places for people needing cheap accommodation, or somewhere between the two.
When allocation switched to needs-based being a filter on the waiting-list in (I think) the mid to late 1970s plus or minus a year or two, then we leaned towards the second - as the resource became a limited resource so some way of allocation was required.
That helped some, and left others in the lurch.
There were lots of controversies in the Blair years - for example does anyone remember Frank Dobson and his council flat in St Pancras (iirc):
He was the subject of controversy for living in a council flat while receiving a six-figure minister's salary. He continued to live there, despite owning a large property in Yorkshire. In an interview in July 2014, he responded to this criticism, saying: "I first lived there when we were subtenants of a subtenant of a private landlord. We were then sold to Camden council. What should I have done? Exercised the right to buy, which I voted against? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Dobson
Whatever we do, it needs careful thinking not xenophobia to be the basis of the policy.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes
If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it
I hate cliff edges as a matter of principle, there should be no maximum that leads to being forced out.
However I don't see why it should be subsidised, whoever lives there that can afford it should be charged a full commercial, unsubsidised rate unless they choose to buy it.
If they buy it the funds from the sale should go to build new homes.
Met office says UK provisionally broke lowest ever October pressure reading on land.
947.9
What does that mean to a layman ?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
If we keep making new lows, then we're going to have to some really interesting phenomenon. Especially when atmospheric pressure drops below - say - 500. And when I say interesting,I mean, I hope you have an oxygen tank handy
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
That white male leaders are intrinsically more capable than either BAME or women
I think you are misunderstanding and pointing your charge at racism/misogyny at the wrong person. He is not the one being racist or having misogyny views. He is pointing out that the reason for defections may be due to some others having those views.
We're not totally rational. None of us.
All of us have a fairly hefty "what do I think of the cut of their jib" factor in evaluating other people. To the extent that it causes us to make suboptimal decisions, it's worth trying to factor that out if we can.
There's a massive, near 180 degrees, difference between acknowledging that those views exist (even in ourselves) and acting on them whilst denying them.
Losing the racist vote probably did cost Sunak a percent or two. The sexist vote might well have been enough to tip the balance in 2016, 2020 and 2024 in America.
How a party should deal with those instincts (which, to repeat, we all have in different ways and none of us are in control of) is one of the things that makes politics difficult.
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
What have they done?
I’m guessing it’s the new gun less posters on Amazon prime ?
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes
If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it
I hate cliff edges as a matter of principle, there should be no maximum that leads to being forced out.
However I don't see why it should be subsidised, whoever lives there that can afford it should be charged a full commercial, unsubsidised rate unless they choose to buy it.
If they buy it the funds from the sale should go to build new homes.
But your plan effectively amounts to extra income tax on high earners who come from poorer backgrounds, while high earners from wealthier backgrounds aren’t affected.
If you think high earners should pay more, just increase the income tax on them instead of playing around with rents in this manner maybe?
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
It depends on the philosophy applied to social housing - are they permanent communities, temporary places for people needing cheap accommodation, or somewhere between the two.
When allocation switched to needs-based being a filter on the waiting-list in (I think) the mid to late 1970s plus or minus a year or two, then we leaned towards the second - as the resource became a limited resource so some way of allocation was required.
That helped some, and left others in the lurch.
There were lots of controversies in the Blair years - for example does anyone remember Frank Dobson and his council flat in St Pancras (iirc):
He was the subject of controversy for living in a council flat while receiving a six-figure minister's salary. He continued to live there, despite owning a large property in Yorkshire. In an interview in July 2014, he responded to this criticism, saying: "I first lived there when we were subtenants of a subtenant of a private landlord. We were then sold to Camden council. What should I have done? Exercised the right to buy, which I voted against? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Dobson
Whatever we do, it needs careful thinking not xenophobia to be the basis of the policy.
Agreed. I've mostly rented, based on being brought up in Denmark, where it's the majority choice (though that's gradually changing now) - why put all your savings into something you're not expert in? Having plentiful homes for rent at all levels of income solves the problem, but it's not the British situation. The difficulty is that moving is at best a hassle and at worst a real loss. The answer is perhaps to means-test the occupier unless they're willing to pay commercial rent, in which case they should be allowed to stay, but the profit should go to new subsidised accomodation.
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
It'll just use one of the open source models. Lots of glib people are selling products that are LLaMa / DeppSeek / Gemma / Mistral with an API on top.
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
I've not forgiven Jeff Bezos for cancelling the theatrical release of Thirteen Lives, the Ron Howard film about the Thai cave rescue. This meant it did not qualify for the Oscars, and it was pretty much nailed on for at least one. The film is said to have MGM's best ever test scores in pre-release screenings.
Met office says UK provisionally broke lowest ever October pressure reading on land.
947.9
What does that mean to a layman ?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
If we keep making new lows, then we're going to have to some really interesting phenomenon. Especially when atmospheric pressure drops below - say - 500. And when I say interesting,I mean, I hope you have an oxygen tank handy
Quite a stretch to 500 from 947!! I think I'll park worrying about that until at least year.
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
We were driving through downtown San Francisco last week and 80% of the billboards were for AI products!
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Just having a look at my local Social Housing organisation, there are mixed development where there are renters, owners and shared ownership. So there may be a confusion between 'Council' (which doesn't exist) and 'Social Housing' - and then a further confusion between rent, owner or shared ownership. But like all of these soundbites, it's the trigger rather than the facts that count.
Anyway shared ownership, part own, part rent is limited to those earning under £90K. So renting will be a lesser amount than that. But you'd have to establish the facts first which are often missing or misinterpreted when feelings are running high.
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
We were driving through downtown San Francisco last week and 80% of the billboards were for AI products!
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
What have they done?
I’m guessing it’s the new gun less posters on Amazon prime ?
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes
If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it
I hate cliff edges as a matter of principle, there should be no maximum that leads to being forced out.
However I don't see why it should be subsidised, whoever lives there that can afford it should be charged a full commercial, unsubsidised rate unless they choose to buy it.
If they buy it the funds from the sale should go to build new homes.
But your plan effectively amounts to extra income tax on high earners who come from poorer backgrounds, while high earners from wealthier backgrounds aren’t affected.
If you think high earners should pay more, just increase the income tax on them instead of playing around with rents in this manner maybe?
No it does not. If you are well off and came from a poor background but need to commercially rent a home, or well off and came from a poor background but get a social home, then why should the states limited resources be going to subsidise just one of those?
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
We were driving through downtown San Francisco last week and 80% of the billboards were for AI products!
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
I looked up the Isokon (Lawn Road) Flats, and found an I think late-1930s photo of the Isobar, which was the private club for the residents of the 32 flats.
It was from a fascinating essay about the the designers and the places. They were rich lefties, with unusual lifestyles. A fabulous read.
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
As they are allowed to.
The government really shouldn't be getting involved
It's the same as protecting food of cultural significance. James Bond is a big part of brand Britainnia and now some shitty American execs are going to trash it. If Trump can stick tariff on kitchen cabinets under the guise of national security then I think we can protect our culturally significant property.
When I was at uni 30 years ago, the uni were exceptionally helpful wrt my health problems at the time. And when a friend had a collapsed lung during an exam (*) they were also excellent in fairly dealing with the repercussions of his ill-health.
(*) The show-off!
I was at uni around 25 years ago and I remember being told by one lecturer, during a particularly awful and embarrassing tutorial, that I should contact the university counselling service. I didn't, because I felt so ashamed. And there was no follow-up from the lecturer.
It's difficult, because a lot of people when they are depressed push other people away, and resist offers of help, but it's why an effort has to be made by those around them to get them help.
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
We were driving through downtown San Francisco last week and 80% of the billboards were for AI products!
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
What have they done?
I’m guessing it’s the new gun less posters on Amazon prime ?
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
We were driving through downtown San Francisco last week and 80% of the billboards were for AI products!
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
I now own approximately 3/4 of a percent of a start-up based in Oakland, so, yes, I did visit Oakland. It seemed nice and I felt in no danger.
I got the BART from Berkeley through Oakland. A man got on and immediately set fire to his own shirt before running up and down the carriage threatening people with a knife. Very exciting, especially for our 4 children.
Is social housing subsidised? Round here it tends to be around the same if not more than its private equivalent. It tends towards the maximum housing allowance. The advantages lie in security of tenancy, repairs, etc.
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
I can't believe they used ChatGPt,
They use Mistral?
I was going to say "don't be silly, no one uses Mistral", but their small model is actually v popular on Ollama.
The hotel chain I’m staying in is currently using a chat bot agent that is done by a 3 person company in California - I don’t get how they’ve managed to convince this chain to use it but it’s not bad at routing issues and requests to the correct people
We were driving through downtown San Francisco last week and 80% of the billboards were for AI products!
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
Is social housing subsidised? Round here it tends to be around the same if not more than its private equivalent. It tends towards the maximum housing allowance. The advantages lie in security of tenancy, repairs, etc.
That question is a shark-infested custard ! I'm not going there.
Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.
I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.
I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?
Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?
It depends on the philosophy applied to social housing - are they permanent communities, temporary places for people needing cheap accommodation, or somewhere between the two.
When allocation switched to needs-based being a filter on the waiting-list in (I think) the mid to late 1970s plus or minus a year or two, then we leaned towards the second - as the resource became a limited resource so some way of allocation was required.
That helped some, and left others in the lurch.
There were lots of controversies in the Blair years - for example does anyone remember Frank Dobson and his council flat in St Pancras (iirc):
He was the subject of controversy for living in a council flat while receiving a six-figure minister's salary. He continued to live there, despite owning a large property in Yorkshire. In an interview in July 2014, he responded to this criticism, saying: "I first lived there when we were subtenants of a subtenant of a private landlord. We were then sold to Camden council. What should I have done? Exercised the right to buy, which I voted against? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Dobson
Whatever we do, it needs careful thinking not xenophobia to be the basis of the policy.
Agreed. I've mostly rented, based on being brought up in Denmark, where it's the majority choice (though that's gradually changing now) - why put all your savings into something you're not expert in? Having plentiful homes for rent at all levels of income solves the problem, but it's not the British situation. The difficulty is that moving is at best a hassle and at worst a real loss. The answer is perhaps to means-test the occupier unless they're willing to pay commercial rent, in which case they should be allowed to stay, but the profit should go to new subsidised accomodation.
Home ownership has been above 60% in Denmark for decades:
I dare say it was lower than that among trendy young people in Copenhagen a couple of generations ago
I'm intrigued though about you "why put all your savings into something you're not expert in" comment.
Aside from most people I imagine regarding themselves as more expert about their own home (and local property generally) then the stock market I don't see why owning your own property necessarily restricts your own savings.
Certainly in my case my savings / investments / pensions have massively increased because my mortgage is paid off giving an income surplus which allows for a greater savings/investment rate.
Which would certainly not be the case if I had to pay rent year after year, decade after decade for the rest of my life.
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
The Flemming novels exit copyright in the UK in 2034. Amazon/MGMs power will wain.
Is social housing subsidised? Round here it tends to be around the same if not more than its private equivalent. It tends towards the maximum housing allowance. The advantages lie in security of tenancy, repairs, etc.
That question is a shark-infested custard ! I'm not going there.
Highly obfuscated by service charges too. However. There seems to be an assumption around that it is cheap. I moved out of social housing into private partly for reasons of cost.
I agree with TSE if as is likely the May local elections are bad for the Conservatives that is when Jenrick's supporters would make a move and initiate a VONC but not before. However as Michael Heseltine discovered the assassin rarely wears the Crown in Tory leadership contests.
If Jenrick supporters therefore forced a VONC which Kemi lost, I would then expect Kemi loyalist MPs to back Cleverly to succeed her. As last year the combined Kemi and Cleverly backing Tory MPs were 2/3 of the Conservatives parliamentary party that would then make Cleverly leader by coronation
Three BAME leaders one after enough. And three women PMs. How’s Labour doing?
and the Tories are sitting where in the polls exactly?
Interesting. You are implicitly saying that white male leaders are intrinsically better than BAME or female leaders
No, I am simply making the observation that having 3 BAME leaders in a row might not be entirely unconnected with the fact that half the Tories voters appear to have switched to Reform.
So why is Labour where it is?
You mean still ahead of the Tories?
Face it. Your attempt at snark revealed an underlying attitude you now want to obfuscate
Rather than making an insinuation please spell out my "underlying attitude" so I can at least defend myself.
That white male leaders are intrinsically more capable than either BAME or women
OMG I can't believe you're still using "BAME" !!!!!!!
And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.
What have they done?
I’m guessing it’s the new gun less posters on Amazon prime ?
Comments
I’m not talking about a revaluation, I’m talking about using estimated prices for which models exist and zoopla, Rightmove, mouseprices, houseprices.io all have ones that could be used
They have rightly had taken to task via community notes etc.
The postwar plan was 100% based on rapid economic growth *and* demographics (lots of workers who remember to do the right thing and die before collecting benefits).
Everything to be paid out of current taxation.
A move to savings accounts for pensions was mooted in the 90s - reflected comprehensively on the Left.
Even then, with the vanishing of rapid growth (the rising tide reached the inherent level), less workers and the old refusing to die, it’s not dead.
Someone told the story, yesterday, of a relative who has been on a government pension (updated, indexed etc) longer than he worked in the job. Which was his whole working life up to retirement.
Which isn’t a bad thing, morally. It’s just that the fundamental premises behind the system do not work with such outcomes.
Another factor is the inability to cut our cloth according to the measure of what we have. Some little time ago, we had the story of two children in care. Due to special needs etc, a house was being purchase for their use and those of their 24/7 careers. The cost was estimated at £250,000 per child, per year. For life.
Now, I would say that is probably an improvement over the infamous Romanian orphanages. The problem is affordability.
We need to learn how to do functional without gold plating. Because if we say “Gold plated or nothing” - we may well get nothing.
In fairness, the longer this goes on the bigger a problem it becomes.
Hmm.
The Russian tanker that was boarded by French, on suspicion of launching the drones over Denmark and possibly other countries in Scandinavia, has been released.
"The Boracay continues on its way. No drones were found."
The issue of rich people and benefits is simple to fix - all income is taxable. This is actually cheaper to administer than multiple cliff edges, special cases etc.
"Knife-wielding" would have been more accurate, but I can see how they got themselves into that muddle.
The response was to suggest that it was a factor in Tories performing poorly
https://x.com/ukhomeoffice/status/1973659280290009148
Its like how many mistakes can you make in one tweet.
Neither manages to say the words “Muslim” “Islam” or “Islamic”, or relate the attacks to the importation of Islamist antisemitism
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/03/attack-antisemitism-synagogue-jewish-manchester-turning-point
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/02/the-guardian-view-on-the-manchester-synagogue-attack-a-tragic-wake-up-call-for-britain
Britain needs a sea change in how its fiscal policy is run. It is a huge weakness for Labour, and Reform aren’t serious in that space. If she goes hard on culture/immigration, she’s only amplifying the Reform message.
The Tories have got to have a USP, and it’s only really in the economic sphere where they’re going to find it.
Much as I deride have too much ideology, and I don't think you can have a completely consistent political ideology, you do need something reasonably coherent and distinct for the longer term.
Plenty of methods exist that could be used where market data can be used to remove appeals.
Equally from memory domestic council tax appeals are taking over a year for reasons that are hilarious
I'd say read it and the regulations, but that alone would take days, and that and the case law would take weeks to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
The first time I seriously applied myself to rental regulation was to the first course given to lettings agency staff - even 15-20 years ago it was 600 pages of notes for a one week course, and much of that was summaries and links out to other sources.
Perhaps you can explain your proposed approach?
Last night's episode has been pulled from iplayer. Funnily enough, I only finished watching it this morning.
Any idea why?
Good, bad, indifferent news ?
I said that I believe that Tories choosing BAME leaders has been a factor in some Tories switching to Reform. If you disagree with that I am happy to debate it but don't twist what I wrote..
Yes, that confusion is real. It is mainly around Councils opting to "ALMO" their housing, and also around whether the Social Provider doing the housing is a local one, or a regional operation. Distinctions are not clear in lots of stats.
My Council Ashfield built 77 council houses and acquired 15 in 23-24, towards a target of 200 in the current 3 year (?) term. They are targeting land they already own, including playing fields and recs deemed to be above the minimum required. Locals are not happy about that policy, but it's also Ashfield Independents trying to strengthen themselves against RefUK.
Small numbers, but it's a movement. AFAICS there is no reason why the same cannot be applied to "Developers Social Quota" housing, which last time I checked was 10% to 40% here depending on area.
The allegations are all over social media, but are allegedly bollocks.
Allegedly.
"My son died thinking he was a failure who had let everyone down. Weeks later we discovered his university had made a terrible blunder"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15160623/son-died-failure-Weeks-university-blunder.html
If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it
Is there a drinking establishment called the ISOBAR anywhere?
There used to be an Isobar in the Isokon Flats in Lawn Road (near Belsize Park tube) from 1937 near where I lived in South Hampstead, but the last I am aware of that being in place was soon after the war.
https://themodernhouse.com/journal/listing-of-the-week-apartment-isokon-building-hampstead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vYv8aREG4
The new Alan Partridge series was also pretty good, too. The Beeb still has some assets to work from, at times.
That is part of the one login system that is in an in house Government system (need to check but my quick research says it’s a GDS system so developed by civil servants and hosted in AWS) so no 3rd party is likely to be involved
When I was at uni 30 years ago, the uni were exceptionally helpful wrt my health problems at the time. And when a friend had a collapsed lung during an exam (*) they were also excellent in fairly dealing with the repercussions of his ill-health.
(*) The show-off!
The government really shouldn't be getting involved
TSE will be pleased to know I had to spellcheck that.
All of us have a fairly hefty "what do I think of the cut of their jib" factor in evaluating other people. To the extent that it causes us to make suboptimal decisions, it's worth trying to factor that out if we can.
There's a massive, near 180 degrees, difference between acknowledging that those views exist (even in ourselves) and acting on them whilst denying them.
Losing the racist vote probably did cost Sunak a percent or two. The sexist vote might well have been enough to tip the balance in 2016, 2020 and 2024 in America.
How a party should deal with those instincts (which, to repeat, we all have in different ways and none of us are in control of) is one of the things that makes politics difficult.
When allocation switched to needs-based being a filter on the waiting-list in (I think) the mid to late 1970s plus or minus a year or two, then we leaned towards the second - as the resource became a limited resource so some way of allocation was required.
That helped some, and left others in the lurch.
There were lots of controversies in the Blair years - for example does anyone remember Frank Dobson and his council flat in St Pancras (iirc):
He was the subject of controversy for living in a council flat while receiving a six-figure minister's salary. He continued to live there, despite owning a large property in Yorkshire. In an interview in July 2014, he responded to this criticism, saying: "I first lived there when we were subtenants of a subtenant of a private landlord. We were then sold to Camden council. What should I have done? Exercised the right to buy, which I voted against?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Dobson
Whatever we do, it needs careful thinking not xenophobia to be the basis of the policy.
However I don't see why it should be subsidised, whoever lives there that can afford it should be charged a full commercial, unsubsidised rate unless they choose to buy it.
If they buy it the funds from the sale should go to build new homes.
https://screenrant.com/amazon-gun-less-james-bond-posters-ranked/
Have I Got News For You just referred to this completely false claim as a fact!!
https://x.com/zoenora6/status/1974224154946609613
If you think high earners should pay more, just increase the income tax on them instead of playing around with rents in this manner maybe?
Heck, that's what Perplexity does
That said, what's he done to James Bond?
(SF and the Bay Area are lovely, although certain posters here wouldn’t like it, what with SF being only 36.5% (non-Hispanic) white.)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2024#:~:text=Median hourly earnings excluding overtime,an increase of 6.9%).
(Unless you mean a different stat.)
Oakland ranks second on most dangerous places in the US list
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/oakland-most-dangerous-places-us-list/3935868/
It was from a fascinating essay about the the designers and the places. They were rich lefties, with unusual lifestyles. A fabulous read.
https://www.themodernistsguidetococktails.com/post/isokon
It's difficult, because a lot of people when they are depressed push other people away, and resist offers of help, but it's why an effort has to be made by those around them to get them help.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2pmy7m72lo
That's so weird.
Round here it tends to be around the same if not more than its private equivalent. It tends towards the maximum housing allowance.
The advantages lie in security of tenancy, repairs, etc.
Euan Blair has a net worth of around £375m, and it is interesting how he got his start - though based on knowledge not contacts afaik.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1mxy2j2elro
https://tradingeconomics.com/denmark/home-ownership-rate
https://www.statista.com/statistics/543377/house-owners-among-population-denmark/
I dare say it was lower than that among trendy young people in Copenhagen a couple of generations ago
I'm intrigued though about you "why put all your savings into something you're not expert in" comment.
Aside from most people I imagine regarding themselves as more expert about their own home (and local property generally) then the stock market I don't see why owning your own property necessarily restricts your own savings.
Certainly in my case my savings / investments / pensions have massively increased because my mortgage is paid off giving an income surplus which allows for a greater savings/investment rate.
Which would certainly not be the case if I had to pay rent year after year, decade after decade for the rest of my life.
However. There seems to be an assumption around that it is cheap. I moved out of social housing into private partly for reasons of cost.
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity/#bame-and-bme