The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
The ultimate portable power source. How many iPhones can it charge?
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.
The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.
The are nowhere near the half the price. I recently rented a BYD Sealion and Audi Q4 e-tron in quick succession so I looked up the UK prices. I could probably get the BYD for about 45 grand and the Audi for about 47 with some Dura negotiating techniques. The BYD's rear suspension was shit garbage and looked suspiciously like a CTRL-C/CTRL-V of a Qashqai (the AWD one, not the cheapo torsion bar 2WD) but the interior fit and finish was better than the Audi. I'd have the Audi out of the two mainly because it'll have better residuals.
In other BEV news, Mrs DA's new lease i5 M60 arrived at sparrowfart on Friday. I got it mainly because that c--t Harry Metcalfe didn't like it. It definitely has some BMW M DNA in it and is pretty fast (0-125mph in 13.0s on the Dragy) but not proper fast (Tributo when it works: 7.7s!) There is no credible Chinese competition yet for a product like that.
1. That's twice in as many days 'sparrowfart' has appeared on PB - a word unknown to me three days ago.
2. I need to replace our two cars next year and for the first time in my life I find the car market a complete mystery - due to baffling new brands and new technologies, I haven't got an effin' clue. I must be getting old. (I'll have to seek advice from PBcars.com.)
How about a souped-up mint condition 1970s Ford Capri?
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?
Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.
That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.
Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.
What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?
If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.
The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.
The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.
In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".
We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).
We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.
And we haven't really moved on from that- hence the continued "there must be some other Special Deal under the counter, we just need to discover the secret codeword that releases it" stuff; Streetings's latest interview is just another example of that.
The options are what they always were. Take an economic hit by divergence, because friction always costs. Or share the pool with others, and accept that you won't get your way all the time.
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I agree with all that. It is gloriously up on the air at the moment. Gonna be a fascinating election
Yes, it's impossible to predict where the None Of The Above vote goes when it realises it does much like Any Of The Below either.
There's lots of talk about "a customs union". As I understand it, a customs union means the two countries (or blocs) will trade freely with each other AND impose a common tariff (whatever that may be) on goods from non-member countries (well, that's what Wiki tells me).
Wiki also tells me there's a Free Trade Agreement where the first part happens but each side can have different tariffs on goods from other countries and then we have a "common market" which is not what we joined in 1973 and ratified in 1975 but the one under the Single European Act which includes the free movement of goods, capital, labour and services (the "Four Freedoms" or if you prefer, the Three Freedoms plus the other one).
Presumably, no one objects to free trade and therefore a Free Trade Agreement would seem to be the first step - then we have the Customs Union and I can see why some might get prickly. The other side may want to impose a 20% tariff on goods from Burkina Faso and Brazil, we might only want 10% - do we meet in the middle at 15%?
I don't know the intricacies but I can see why a Customs Union might be a useful first step but a Free Trade Agreement might suit more people (especially those whose antipathy towards the EU knows no bounds). Clearly, we cannot go back to any agreement which includes freedom of movement though that might change with time.
We have the free trade agreement of course, in so far as one is on offer outside the single market.
The EU can read polls as well, so would be unlikely to want to even discuss the complexity of a customs union or our joining the single market, since there’s a greater than 50% chance we’d repudiate in three years, having taken two to negotiate it. And that’s without considering the need for Hungarian, Slovakian, and Czech agreement, and the games their Russian masters would have their PMs play on this.
Fa better to focus efforts on better relations with the EU across a thousand tiny tweaks, founded on common security, support for Ukraine, and the security of the Baltic.
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...
The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.
The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.
The are nowhere near the half the price. I recently rented a BYD Sealion and Audi Q4 e-tron in quick succession so I looked up the UK prices. I could probably get the BYD for about 45 grand and the Audi for about 47 with some Dura negotiating techniques. The BYD's rear suspension was shit garbage and looked suspiciously like a CTRL-C/CTRL-V of a Qashqai (the AWD one, not the cheapo torsion bar 2WD) but the interior fit and finish was better than the Audi. I'd have the Audi out of the two mainly because it'll have better residuals.
In other BEV news, Mrs DA's new lease i5 M60 arrived at sparrowfart on Friday. I got it mainly because that c--t Harry Metcalfe didn't like it. It definitely has some BMW M DNA in it and is pretty fast (0-125mph in 13.0s on the Dragy) but not proper fast (Tributo when it works: 7.7s!) There is no credible Chinese competition yet for a product like that.
1. That's twice in as many days 'sparrowfart' has appeared on PB - a word unknown to me three days ago.
2. I need to replace our two cars next year and for the first time in my life I find the car market a complete mystery - due to baffling new brands and new technologies, I haven't got an effin' clue. I must be getting old. (I'll have to seek advice from PBcars.com.)
There's lots of talk about "a customs union". As I understand it, a customs union means the two countries (or blocs) will trade freely with each other AND impose a common tariff (whatever that may be) on goods from non-member countries (well, that's what Wiki tells me).
Wiki also tells me there's a Free Trade Agreement where the first part happens but each side can have different tariffs on goods from other countries and then we have a "common market" which is not what we joined in 1973 and ratified in 1975 but the one under the Single European Act which includes the free movement of goods, capital, labour and services (the "Four Freedoms" or if you prefer, the Three Freedoms plus the other one).
Presumably, no one objects to free trade and therefore a Free Trade Agreement would seem to be the first step - then we have the Customs Union and I can see why some might get prickly. The other side may want to impose a 20% tariff on goods from Burkina Faso and Brazil, we might only want 10% - do we meet in the middle at 15%?
I don't know the intricacies but I can see why a Customs Union might be a useful first step but a Free Trade Agreement might suit more people (especially those whose antipathy towards the EU knows no bounds). Clearly, we cannot go back to any agreement which includes freedom of movement though that might change with time.
We have the free trade agreement of course, in so far as one is on offer outside the single market.
The EU can read polls as well, so would be unlikely to want to even discuss the complexity of a customs union or our joining the single market, since there’s a greater than 50% chance we’d repudiate in three years, having taken two to negotiate it. And that’s without considering the need for Hungarian, Slovakian, and Czech agreement, and the games their Russian masters would have their PMs play on this.
Fa better to focus efforts on better relations with the EU across a thousand tiny tweaks, founded on common security, support for Ukraine, and the security of the Baltic.
I do agree the Kensington Treaty points the way to a more complex series of relationships with Europe outside the EU framework which might have been a better approach than joining an organisation which didn't really work for us.
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?
Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.
That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.
Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.
May was prepared to agree to nothing like a Norway option.
Because the party would have axed her if she did.
True. No one came out of the post referendum process very well. But Alan is, to use his own epithet, a bit of a wanker to try and reinvent history like that.
There was a great deal of wankery on all sides during that period. Otoh, being kinder, the various factions were all acting rationally in pursuit of their agendas. The outcome of the 17 election, the parliamentary arithmetic it bequeathed, the destruction of Mrs May's authority but keeping her in place, could not have been more fiendishly designed to guarantee impasse if you had actually approached a fiend and said to them, "please design an outcome to guarantee impasse".
The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.
The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.
The are nowhere near the half the price. I recently rented a BYD Sealion and Audi Q4 e-tron in quick succession so I looked up the UK prices. I could probably get the BYD for about 45 grand and the Audi for about 47 with some Dura negotiating techniques. The BYD's rear suspension was shit garbage and looked suspiciously like a CTRL-C/CTRL-V of a Qashqai (the AWD one, not the cheapo torsion bar 2WD) but the interior fit and finish was better than the Audi. I'd have the Audi out of the two mainly because it'll have better residuals.
In other BEV news, Mrs DA's new lease i5 M60 arrived at sparrowfart on Friday. I got it mainly because that c--t Harry Metcalfe didn't like it. It definitely has some BMW M DNA in it and is pretty fast (0-125mph in 13.0s on the Dragy) but not proper fast (Tributo when it works: 7.7s!) There is no credible Chinese competition yet for a product like that.
1. That's twice in as many days 'sparrowfart' has appeared on PB - a word unknown to me three days ago.
2. I need to replace our two cars next year and for the first time in my life I find the car market a complete mystery - due to baffling new brands and new technologies, I haven't got an effin' clue. I must be getting old. (I'll have to seek advice from PBcars.com.)
We say the "skreek o farts"
I haven't looked at the earlier correspondence, but isn't 'sparrowfart" an Aussie term?
And Good Morning one and all! And a fine bright one it is here.
The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.
The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.
But who wants to be seen in Chinese TAT
The market for cheap tat in the UK is enormous. Look at what most people wear about town nowadays. My neighbour just chopped a gorgeous cherry down to park their BYD on what used to be a garden.
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
There's lots of talk about "a customs union". As I understand it, a customs union means the two countries (or blocs) will trade freely with each other AND impose a common tariff (whatever that may be) on goods from non-member countries (well, that's what Wiki tells me).
Wiki also tells me there's a Free Trade Agreement where the first part happens but each side can have different tariffs on goods from other countries and then we have a "common market" which is not what we joined in 1973 and ratified in 1975 but the one under the Single European Act which includes the free movement of goods, capital, labour and services (the "Four Freedoms" or if you prefer, the Three Freedoms plus the other one).
Presumably, no one objects to free trade and therefore a Free Trade Agreement would seem to be the first step - then we have the Customs Union and I can see why some might get prickly. The other side may want to impose a 20% tariff on goods from Burkina Faso and Brazil, we might only want 10% - do we meet in the middle at 15%?
I don't know the intricacies but I can see why a Customs Union might be a useful first step but a Free Trade Agreement might suit more people (especially those whose antipathy towards the EU knows no bounds). Clearly, we cannot go back to any agreement which includes freedom of movement though that might change with time.
We already have a FTA with the EU. But not of course a single market.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
Or terrifying. A move away from Thatcher.
I used to think the Tories needed to finally move on from Thatcher, but look at what happened when the Republicans moved on from Reagan. Before they made that move, at least the bonkers economics was linked to some sort of residual belief in freedom and democracy.
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
It is tricky one to sequence isn’t it? Logically you have to negotiate the deal first, but that was equally true of leaving. There is one big difference though: leaving could be unilateral whereas accession requires agreement from the other party and, as noted above, Putin now has Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia with which to sow discord..
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
What a fascinating modern age with live in.
Talking about the modern age. Russia developing rocket borne shrapnel weapons to take out Starlink.
That's an overstatement, I'm afraid; Kenneth Robinson, Harold Wilson's first one, was widely held to be excellent.
In response to Mr eek's statement that: All Heath Secretaries fail - it's a complete impossible job that is all downsides with zero chance of an upside...
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
What a fascinating modern age with live in.
Talking about the modern age. Russia developing rocket borne shrapnel weapons to take out Starlink.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
The big issue will also be the terms on which we rejoin. They won’t be as favourable as last time. Would the EU welcome us back with open arms too ?
I’m not seeing a path to rejoin just a closer union.
Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?
Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.
That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.
Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.
What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?
If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.
The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.
The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.
In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".
We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).
We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.
It's history now but I think a middle way would have been best: join the Common Market as soon as we could - as we did - but use it to shape it more our way over 50 years so that a single market did not equal irrevocable FOM, so that the Euro was off the table, and so that the new Europe Union, whatever it was called, was co-terminus with a military alliance , perhaps called NATO.
I don't think any good options remain, only bad and worse ones. As to 'A Custom Union', Wes may fly a kite about it, and it sounds great. But I bet anything he will not begin to outline what is involved in having both a free trade area (which we have already) and a common external tariff with the EU.
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
What a fascinating modern age with live in.
Talking about the modern age. Russia developing rocket borne shrapnel weapons to take out Starlink.
Why? Surely in the event of a war comrade Musk will assign it to them…? Must be to target the Anglo/French OneWeb.
They’re already heavily using it in their war. I suppose they reason that a future administration might see Musk do a 180 and suddenly become anti-Russian, though there were scant signs of that under Biden.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
Ignore the referendum as most MPs after all ignored the Leave win in 2016 when they voted down multiple Withdrawal Agreements and voted to extend staying in the EU until Boris won a majority in 2019. Reform would certainly campaign at the next general election on a stay out platform as the LDs fought the 2019 general election on a rejoin the EU manifesto
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default.
If you want to still see your following feed by default, the kindle Twitter app is updated so infrequently it still has the old settings (it was also called Twitter for months after the name change)
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
The problem was the profits were not used to build replacement homes not with right to buy itself
So having failed as health secretary Streeting wants distract attention by promising free unicorns to village idiots.
All Heath Secretaries fail - it's a complete impossible job that is all downsides with zero chance of an upside...
Is Streeting failing as Health Secretary, or succeeding more slowly than he might have wished? Appointments are a bit easier to come by; waiting lists are a bit shorter; even the deadly flu pandemic is a bit milder than Boris's Covid pandemic; doctors and nurses are a bit better paid than they were.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
After the experience post 2016, one thing any party promising a referendum would have to do would be to commit to negotiating the full details of any Rejoin package before a referendum were held. That would secure better terms for the UK, because then the EU negotiators would have to convince the UK public that they were offering a fair deal, and were not screwing the UK in the way they were allowed to get away with after the 2016 referendum.
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...
We're about 20 miles south of Broadway, which is dangerously close to ScottP, but he is safely beyond the Worcestershire border. I believe that passport control has his number and his visits to Gloucestershire are therefore confined to the National Hunt Festival.
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
The problem was the profits were not used to build replacement homes not with right to buy itself
Not sure I agree on the second point. The good houses got creamed off. A lot of poor people ended up being trapped in crap houses/estates in failing towns. It's not all about the Southeast when it comes to bribing voters - rather, those voters in the North often ended up being negatively bribed.
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
Clearly yes we should be building social housing on a massive scale to reflect the change in population over the last couple of decades and lost social housing stock.
As for right to buy, the principle is fine, but the discounts are way too big. Make it 2% per year of tenancy, up to a max of 20% discount, rather than starting at 35% and increasing from there!
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
The problem was the profits were not used to build replacement homes not with right to buy itself
The problem is nothing to do with right to buy.
The problem is planning.
The houses sold with right to buy still exist. The problem is our population has increased by over ten million people, and our demographics changed to need more houses per capita, and we have not constructed remotely enough houses as people object to new buildings.
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...
We're about 20 miles south of Broadway, which is dangerously close to ScottP, but he is safely beyond the Worcestershire border. I believe that passport control has his number and his visits to Gloucestershire are therefore confined to the National Hunt Festival.
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...
We're about 20 miles south of Broadway, which is dangerously close to ScottP, but he is safely beyond the Worcestershire border. I believe that passport control has his number and his visits to Gloucestershire are therefore confined to the National Hunt Festival.
I made the mistake of visiting Broadway during their extended Christmas opening hours
Hi C. Noticed you namechecking Winchcombe recently. You a local, or were you just passing through?
Me? Winchcombe? Not me, must have been someone else who mentioned it.
But I have been there, aeons ago. Dim memory of visiting on a student days tour with the archaeological handbook and CAMRA guide, very necessary in those days of fizzy keg ale.
Somebody posted a pic from StPeter's Church, Winchcombe, which I can see from my back garden. Not you? Sorry, my mistake.
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
No worries. Friends used to live not far away and I got to know something of that area. Broadway, the Vale, the Malvern Hills ...
We're about 20 miles south of Broadway, which is dangerously close to ScottP, but he is safely beyond the Worcestershire border. I believe that passport control has his number and his visits to Gloucestershire are therefore confined to the National Hunt Festival.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
Clearly yes we should be building social housing on a massive scale to reflect the change in population over the last couple of decades and lost social housing stock.
As for right to buy, the principle is fine, but the discounts are way too big. Make it 2% per year of tenancy, up to a max of 20% discount, rather than starting at 35% and increasing from there!
No qualms with your final paragraph at all. Just because the principle is right, does not mean that the details can't be improved.
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
Clearly yes we should be building social housing on a massive scale to reflect the change in population over the last couple of decades and lost social housing stock.
As for right to buy, the principle is fine, but the discounts are way too big. Make it 2% per year of tenancy, up to a max of 20% discount, rather than starting at 35% and increasing from there!
No qualms with your final paragraph at all.
The problem with our politics is what makes a policy good or bad is often in the detail but the voting public don't care, and therefore neither do our politicians. So the discussion becomes "is right to buy good or bad?" rather than "can we make right to buy good?".
So having failed as health secretary Streeting wants distract attention by promising free unicorns to village idiots.
All Heath Secretaries fail - it's a complete impossible job that is all downsides with zero chance of an upside...
That's true of lots of roles. Look at Education or Transport for comparison,
Is it easier to list the ministerial jobs that aren't all downside?
1. Erm... 2. Um.... 3. That's about it, really.
Chancellor.
It is a stressful job with plenty of downsides, but plenty of power to use as you see fit. If you can't get that to work for an upside for you, then you're just not very good at your job.
Yes, I am aware of the irony of me calling out other people for a lack of subtlety.
He'll be getting your vote then ?
Yes for several reasons and none of them to do with politics.
First of all his name brilliant for punning.
Secondly, he's a Cambridge gentleman, which is only one rung below being a lawyer in the awesomeness stakes.
Who was the last Cambridge educated PM?
Am I right in thinking it was Stanley Baldwin?
In the UK yes though Portillo, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard and Rab Butler got close. Nick Clegg was a Cambridge educated deputy PM.
Both Streeting and Burnham now flying the flag for the light blues, as is Jenrick. Indeed of the 3 main party leaders only Starmer went to Oxford and then only as a postgrad in law after Leeds Uni undergrad. Farage went to the university of life and Badenoch to Sussex. Davey is the only UK party leader left now who has an Oxford PPE degree
Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?
Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.
That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.
Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Hope he packed enough plasters for that walk in wellies or are they a few hundred metres from his LR discovery in the car park?
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
With both Tories and Labour down, I'd be surprised and disappointed if the LDs just tread water. National opinion polls during the 2022 local campaign period had Labour on around 40%, the Tories on around 34%, with the LDs at 10%. The political situation now is hugely better for the LDs in relation to both the major parties, notwithstanding Reform's huge surge from just 5% back then.
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
What a fascinating modern age with live in.
Talking about the modern age. Russia developing rocket borne shrapnel weapons to take out Starlink.
Surely that risks not only Starlink, but all the other satellites in low Earth orbit. It could also potentially mean the end of human ambitions in space (including Musk's Mars plans).
That's an overstatement, I'm afraid; Kenneth Robinson, Harold Wilson's first one, was widely held to be excellent.
In response to Mr eek's statement that: All Heath Secretaries fail - it's a complete impossible job that is all downsides with zero chance of an upside...
Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?
Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.
That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.
Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.
What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?
If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.
The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.
The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.
In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".
We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).
We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.
Before we get to that stage we may need a Reform/Jenrick type government to fail utterly to get our, and the media’s 1950s obsession out of our collective system, so that only the most extreme racists and Singapore on Thames types realise that what we had when we were in the EU was better than what we’ve had since.
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I agree with all that. It is gloriously up on the air at the moment. Gonna be a fascinating election
Yes, it's impossible to predict where the None Of The Above vote goes when it realises it does much like Any Of The Below either.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
I can't help cringing a little when I see politicians, of whatever hue, posing for pictures with their children. To me it edges on exploitation; it just makes me feel sorry for the kids, who probably don't have much say in whether they want their photos splashed across the media and certainly aren't in a position to give informed consent for this.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
After the experience post 2016, one thing any party promising a referendum would have to do would be to commit to negotiating the full details of any Rejoin package before a referendum were held. That would secure better terms for the UK, because then the EU negotiators would have to convince the UK public that they were offering a fair deal, and were not screwing the UK in the way they were allowed to get away with after the 2016 referendum.
Why another referendum? Make it an explicit manifesto commitment for
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
Can be done in the UK if you get the right car charger, there seem to be some bi-directional chargers on the market now, there weren't when I had mine fitted. Charge the car offpeak and it's 8p/kWhr 24 hours/day
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
The problem was the profits were not used to build replacement homes not with right to buy itself
Not sure I agree on the second point. The good houses got creamed off. A lot of poor people ended up being trapped in crap houses/estates in failing towns. It's not all about the Southeast when it comes to bribing voters - rather, those voters in the North often ended up being negatively bribed.
But on your first point, quite so.
For many working class people owning a home for the first time after they bought their council property was a huge source of pride and driver of social mobility and expanded property ownership
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
The problem was the profits were not used to build replacement homes not with right to buy itself
The problem is nothing to do with right to buy.
The problem is planning.
The houses sold with right to buy still exist. The problem is our population has increased by over ten million people, and our demographics changed to need more houses per capita, and we have not constructed remotely enough houses as people object to new buildings.
Yes but new social homes need state funding as even if developers build new homes new social homes aren’t profitable for them.
Our birthrate is falling, only immigration increased the population but even net immigration is now starting to decline too
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
With both Tories and Labour down, I'd be surprised and disappointed if the LDs just tread water. National opinion polls during the 2022 local campaign period had Labour on around 40%, the Tories on around 34%, with the LDs at 10%. The political situation now is hugely better for the LDs in relation to both the major parties, notwithstanding Reform's huge surge from just 5% back then.
You may see some LD gains from the Tories, Labour and SNP but offset by some LD losses to the Greens and Reform and Plaid
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
After the experience post 2016, one thing any party promising a referendum would have to do would be to commit to negotiating the full details of any Rejoin package before a referendum were held. That would secure better terms for the UK, because then the EU negotiators would have to convince the UK public that they were offering a fair deal, and were not screwing the UK in the way they were allowed to get away with after the 2016 referendum.
Why another referendum? Make it an explicit manifesto commitment for
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
Can be done in the UK if you get the right car charger, there seem to be some bi-directional chargers on the market now, there weren't when I had mine fitted. Charge the car offpeak and it's 8p/kWhr 24 hours/day
One of the lesser reasons for buying a Leaf was the potential of the Chademo system for bidirectional charging. Unfortunately, bidirectional chargers have remained either unobtainable or wildly expensive to install, and Chademo also seems to be going the way of Betamax. Oh well.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
With both Tories and Labour down, I'd be surprised and disappointed if the LDs just tread water. National opinion polls during the 2022 local campaign period had Labour on around 40%, the Tories on around 34%, with the LDs at 10%. The political situation now is hugely better for the LDs in relation to both the major parties, notwithstanding Reform's huge surge from just 5% back then.
You may see some LD gains from the Tories, Labour and SNP but offset by some LD losses to the Greens and Reform and Plaid
Mark Pack is a good scout and he has been dutifully recording the LD's ups and downs since the GE. It's been generally a pattern of modest progress, and I would expect that to continue through the May contests.
I'm interested in the politics around current Government moves to consult on changes to animal welfare - the plan to ban trail hunting has been out in front, but there are also significant moves on farm welfare standards, and also a ban on "puppy farms" (whatever those are this week *).
It seems to me to be more decisive than I expect from Prime Minister Timmy Timidity.
I wonder if the underlying politics are to persuade the Tories to paint themselves into the Turnip Taliban corner. The blues are already adept at cornering themselves in some areas, due to the replacement of alternative policy with oppositionalism.
ISTM that the if the Tory leadership try to out-Farage Farage, that will be in Labour's favour.
* From my acquaintances, the last round of "action on puppy farms" had a far greater impact on small-scale hobby breeding by reducing the ceiling for the full panoply of registration, isolation facilities for ill dogs etc, from 3 to 2 litters per annum, which broke the ability to cover costs whilst maintaining welfare.
Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?
Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.
That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.
Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.
What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?
If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.
The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.
The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.
In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".
We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).
We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.
Before we get to that stage we may need a Reform/Jenrick type government to fail utterly to get our, and the media’s 1950s obsession out of our collective system, so that only the most extreme racists and Singapore on Thames types realise that what we had when we were in the EU was better than what we’ve had since.
You genuinely believe the state of our economy is directly caused by leaving the EU don’t you? It’s amazing how much of this debate, on both sides, is driven by pure faith, and picking a side, and not facts*.
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
What a fascinating modern age with live in.
Talking about the modern age. Russia developing rocket borne shrapnel weapons to take out Starlink.
Surely that risks not only Starlink, but all the other satellites in low Earth orbit. It could also potentially mean the end of human ambitions in space (including Musk's Mars plans).
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
With both Tories and Labour down, I'd be surprised and disappointed if the LDs just tread water. National opinion polls during the 2022 local campaign period had Labour on around 40%, the Tories on around 34%, with the LDs at 10%. The political situation now is hugely better for the LDs in relation to both the major parties, notwithstanding Reform's huge surge from just 5% back then.
You may see some LD gains from the Tories, Labour and SNP but offset by some LD losses to the Greens and Reform and Plaid
Mark Pack is a good scout and he has been dutifully recording the LD's ups and downs since the GE. It's been generally a pattern of modest progress, and I would expect that to continue through the May contests.
One would think the ID card Bill, and rejoining the EU moving the agenda, are both in the LibDem’s favour?
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
I can't help cringing a little when I see politicians, of whatever hue, posing for pictures with their children. To me it edges on exploitation; it just makes me feel sorry for the kids, who probably don't have much say in whether they want their photos splashed across the media and certainly aren't in a position to give informed consent for this.
Ireland and France have recently produced a bilingual video warning parents not to plaster their children's lives on social media (called sharenting, apparently):-
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
I can't help cringing a little when I see politicians, of whatever hue, posing for pictures with their children. To me it edges on exploitation; it just makes me feel sorry for the kids, who probably don't have much say in whether they want their photos splashed across the media and certainly aren't in a position to give informed consent for this.
I was thinking the other day that not too many children follow their fathers, or in these days, their mothers, into the 'family trade' of politics. Hilary Benn and Stephen Kinnock come to mind in the current HoC.
Edit 'not' replacement for 'now'. FFS strikes again!
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
Farage isn't going to lose interest while Reform are polling so high, it's more a case of when/whether his financial and media backers decide to switch back to the Conservatives.
I'm interested in the politics around current Government moves to consult on changes to animal welfare - the plan to ban trail hunting has been out in front, but there are also significant moves on farm welfare standards, and also a ban on "puppy farms" (whatever those are this week *).
It seems to me to be more decisive than I expect from Prime Minister Timmy Timidity.
I wonder if the underlying politics are to persuade the Tories to paint themselves into the Turnip Taliban corner. The blues are already adept at cornering themselves in some areas, due to the replacement of alternative policy with oppositionalism.
ISTM that the if the Tory leadership try to out-Farage Farage, that will be in Labour's favour.
* From my acquaintances, the last round of "action on puppy farms" had a far greater impact on small-scale hobby breeding by reducing the ceiling for the full panoply of registration, isolation facilities for ill dogs etc, from 3 to 2 litters per annum, which broke the ability to cover costs whilst maintaining welfare.
All looks sensible to me, but I defer to experts on the puppies and pig farrowing cages.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
I can't help cringing a little when I see politicians, of whatever hue, posing for pictures with their children. To me it edges on exploitation; it just makes me feel sorry for the kids, who probably don't have much say in whether they want their photos splashed across the media and certainly aren't in a position to give informed consent for this.
I was thinking the other day that not too many children follow their fathers, or in these days, their mothers, into the 'family trade' of politics. Hilary Benn and Stephen Kinnock come to mind in the current HoC.
Edit 'not' replacement for 'now'. FFS strikes again!
Churchill, Pitt the Younger...
Hmm. Can we count Churchill four times? Randolph, Winston, Eden (at a stretch), Soames.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
Farage isn't going to lose interest while Reform are polling so high, it's more a case of when/whether his financial and media backers decide to switch back to the Conservatives.
Reform is turning into an openly racist party these days. I wonder if the Conservatives could exploit the just-about-plausible deniability market?
eg Migrants are a "legitimate concern" while sending people "home" to countries they have never lived in simply because they are black or Muslim is not something we approve of.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
Farage isn't going to lose interest while Reform are polling so high, it's more a case of when/whether his financial and media backers decide to switch back to the Conservatives.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
After the experience post 2016, one thing any party promising a referendum would have to do would be to commit to negotiating the full details of any Rejoin package before a referendum were held. That would secure better terms for the UK, because then the EU negotiators would have to convince the UK public that they were offering a fair deal, and were not screwing the UK in the way they were allowed to get away with after the 2016 referendum.
Why another referendum? Make it an explicit manifesto commitment for
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
Can be done in the UK if you get the right car charger, there seem to be some bi-directional chargers on the market now, there weren't when I had mine fitted. Charge the car offpeak and it's 8p/kWhr 24 hours/day
I'm not at all clear that it is a good metric, but I see that CarWOW are offering up to about 5% discounts on BYD Seals and lower, but I expect the brand would compete on basic price more than tactical discounts.
I'm not sure if I could live with a car called "Seal", unless the horn made onking noises.
There's a some stuff about more sophisticated vehicle charging schemes over on Buildhub, amongst our professional or experienced amateur electricians. But in recent years it tended to be around optimising use of complicated tariffs and solar energy to minimise bills, with the main limitation on the motor vehicle being that they did not have the gubbins installed in the vehicle to manage using it as storage, and limitations on charging cycles.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
Farage isn't going to lose interest while Reform are polling so high, it's more a case of when/whether his financial and media backers decide to switch back to the Conservatives.
Then where is he? Where is Nigel Farage? He could be ill, I suppose, with this flu epidemic, but over the past few months he has been less and less visible.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
Farage isn't going to lose interest while Reform are polling so high, it's more a case of when/whether his financial and media backers decide to switch back to the Conservatives.
Reform is turning into an openly racist party these days. I wonder if the Conservatives could exploit the just-about-plausible deniability market?
Provided people have short memories, and they do, there’s space to be the “quietly competent economically literate, and non-racist, let’s have some hope for the future” party.
Say before the next election Starmer or some bolder replacement called a referendum to rejoin the EU and won. It will take some time to negotiate actually doing it with the EU.
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
After the experience post 2016, one thing any party promising a referendum would have to do would be to commit to negotiating the full details of any Rejoin package before a referendum were held. That would secure better terms for the UK, because then the EU negotiators would have to convince the UK public that they were offering a fair deal, and were not screwing the UK in the way they were allowed to get away with after the 2016 referendum.
Why another referendum? Make it an explicit manifesto commitment for
The BYDs are crazy cheap over here. Japanese people are double-prejudiced against both China and EVs but apparently their plan is just to keep discounting until somebody buys one and tells their friends that electric cars are not in fact total shite, that's just the Japanese ones.
I got the AWD version of the Seal and various extras that their highly effective ex-Nissan salespeople sold my wife on (I got back from the loo after agreeing to buy it and they were halfway to selling her a large mechanical digger) and it was only a little over 5 million yen which is like 24,000 GBP. Then a month later they announced a bunch of even bigger discounts.
With the subsidies and various discounts you can get a Dolphin for about 2 million yen which is under 10,000 GBP. I heard some people who have solar are buying new BYD Dolphins to use as storage batteries. The normal batteries sold by Nichicon etc are over 1 million yen for like 8 kWh, and a Dolphin gives you 45 kWh, lasts longer, and as an added bonus you can drive it around.
Can be done in the UK if you get the right car charger, there seem to be some bi-directional chargers on the market now, there weren't when I had mine fitted. Charge the car offpeak and it's 8p/kWhr 24 hours/day
One of the lesser reasons for buying a Leaf was the potential of the Chademo system for bidirectional charging. Unfortunately, bidirectional chargers have remained either unobtainable or wildly expensive to install, and Chademo also seems to be going the way of Betamax. Oh well.
Unsurprisingly electricity suppliers don't seem keen on them. All VW, Hyundai, Kia support bi-directional charging as well.
The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.
The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.
The are nowhere near the half the price. I recently rented a BYD Sealion and Audi Q4 e-tron in quick succession so I looked up the UK prices. I could probably get the BYD for about 45 grand and the Audi for about 47 with some Dura negotiating techniques. The BYD's rear suspension was shit garbage and looked suspiciously like a CTRL-C/CTRL-V of a Qashqai (the AWD one, not the cheapo torsion bar 2WD) but the interior fit and finish was better than the Audi. I'd have the Audi out of the two mainly because it'll have better residuals.
In other BEV news, Mrs DA's new lease i5 M60 arrived at sparrowfart on Friday. I got it mainly because that c--t Harry Metcalfe didn't like it. It definitely has some BMW M DNA in it and is pretty fast (0-125mph in 13.0s on the Dragy) but not proper fast (Tributo when it works: 7.7s!) There is no credible Chinese competition yet for a product like that.
Your comparison is the previous-generation cars though, the new ones such as the Merc EQS are coming in way higher than the Chinese equivalents. Residuals on anything electric is crap at the moment, because no-one wants to buy used ones. The finance companies are even resorting to leasing used EVs to try and hold up the market.
What did Harry Metcalfe do to upset you? He’s one of the best motoring journalists in the country, and has a barn full of very nice cars to boot.
On paper I should like him because he's a fellow Paneristi but I suspect he is a leave voter and a tory. I also rarely agree with his reviews. Moaned about a GT3 RS having stiff suspension. WTF.
Re prices, BMW have suddenly become competitive: new BMW iX3 starts at £58k and although it's getting rave reviews at the moment it won't be long before it's available for £50k through a broker. The equivalent Chinese cars are a lot more than half of that. (Yes, the i5 was stupidly overpriced, especially the M60, hence them having to shift a load on heavily subsidised leases...)
Plus the areas holding local and devolved elections next year are areas like London and the big metropolitan city councils, Scotland and Wales where Labour are stronger. The English counties where Labour are weakest and which had local elections last year are largely not holding elections next year.
As I said above the LDs will make some gains from Labour and the Tories and SNP
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
The article is about Right to buy - which is different to Help to buy.
Yep I'm an idiot - but the fact that the Telegraph is saying right to buy (THE Thatcherite policy) was a bad idea with serious consequences is incredibly interesting.
The problem was the profits were not used to build replacement homes not with right to buy itself
The problem is nothing to do with right to buy.
The problem is planning.
The houses sold with right to buy still exist. The problem is our population has increased by over ten million people, and our demographics changed to need more houses per capita, and we have not constructed remotely enough houses as people object to new buildings.
The problem is not planning. Sure, more houses would be good but it isn’t going to happen. You are being naive.
Planning is being identified as a problem by developers as it is a cost. Developers don’t give a shit about the built environment or infrastructure. We need planning.
And to be clear.
There are 1.5 million unbuilt houses in developer land banks. Prices will never ever drop while the private sector is controlling the housing supply. And it does.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway.
I'm not convinced about "retires without being ousted", unless you mean to include in that "is practically speaking forced to resign but doesn't formally lose a leadership contest". Post-war, Wikipedia tells me there were some Tory PMs who resigned due to illness in the 50s and 60s, Harold Wilson seems to have resigned of his own accord (possibly with a side order of health issues), and we could argue whether Cameron was forced out or chose to resign, but everyone else I think was either effectively ousted or lost an election. Starmer is 63, which is older than I thought, but he hasn't been successful in politics long enough to develop Wilson's "been around this racetrack so often that I cannot generate any more enthusiasm" weariness. So I think that the most likely thing is that he'll continue to the next election, because as you say Labour doesn't have the mechanisms and enthusiasm for toppling leaders that the Tories do.
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
With both Tories and Labour down, I'd be surprised and disappointed if the LDs just tread water. National opinion polls during the 2022 local campaign period had Labour on around 40%, the Tories on around 34%, with the LDs at 10%. The political situation now is hugely better for the LDs in relation to both the major parties, notwithstanding Reform's huge surge from just 5% back then.
You may see some LD gains from the Tories, Labour and SNP but offset by some LD losses to the Greens and Reform and Plaid
Mark Pack is a good scout and he has been dutifully recording the LD's ups and downs since the GE. It's been generally a pattern of modest progress, and I would expect that to continue through the May contests.
One would think the ID card Bill, and rejoining the EU moving the agenda, are both in the LibDem’s favour?
Mark Pack is standing down as Lib Dem President from January 1st, so he will have more time on his hands (as if!).
I hope to engage him in suggesting ways in which members of the House of Lords can be held to account when they waste the time of the HoL repeatedly spouting inane bollocks into the national conversation, displaying the hinterland of a lobotomised slug.
(That follows a particular recent debate on aspects of 'cycling' where there were peers reading out bits of the Telegraph, and proposing amendments to introduce laws that have already been in law for nearly half a century already.)
There's a lot of engineering him into position I think, and Starmer is clearly on board - not sure how else someone openly campaigning for the top job is still in the Cabinet. He is the annointed successor - and always was.
For that reason, I don't think he makes it.
Doubt he is anointed. There was number 10 briefing against him about a month ago.
IMO wouldn't be surprised if Starmer sacks him, says he needs to bring someone in to end the strikes.
I think it depends on how desperate Labour becomes, which itself depends on how catastrophic the local elections are. If Labour has a true mare - for example losing control of London Boroughs which they currently run with large majorities - then switching to Streeting might be on the cards. The one caveat is if the big winner in the cities happens to be the Greens, Labour members might conclude that being more radical and passionate and tacking left is what's required.
Labour won a NEV of 35% in 2022, and will probably win about 10-15% in May. Reform won nothing in 2022, and will probably win 25-30% next year. The Greens would surge, but the traditional outperformance in local elections by the Lib Dem’s will take a lot of votes that would otherwise go to them. The Conservatives will probably win 20-25%, compared to 30% in 2022.
What that likely means is Labour being hit on multiple fronts.
Boroughs like Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland, Halton, Sandwell, Thurrock will go Reform.
Islington, Hackney, Camden, Lambeth, Birmingham, Southwark, Brent, South Tyneside, will be lost to NOC at least (Your Party will also be challenging in some).
The Tories will lose a string of counties and new unitaries to Reform, but pick up Westminster, Barnet, Wandsworth,
And of course, the results in Wales and Scotland will be horrid.
I suspect Labour will actually get about 20%, win London overall still and do better than expected in Scotland where Holyrood polls suggest Labour gains from the SNP as in the Hamilton by election. That will stop a bad night for Starmer becoming a catastrophe and may save his job
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
With both Tories and Labour down, I'd be surprised and disappointed if the LDs just tread water. National opinion polls during the 2022 local campaign period had Labour on around 40%, the Tories on around 34%, with the LDs at 10%. The political situation now is hugely better for the LDs in relation to both the major parties, notwithstanding Reform's huge surge from just 5% back then.
You may see some LD gains from the Tories, Labour and SNP but offset by some LD losses to the Greens and Reform and Plaid
Mark Pack is a good scout and he has been dutifully recording the LD's ups and downs since the GE. It's been generally a pattern of modest progress, and I would expect that to continue through the May contests.
One would think the ID card Bill, and rejoining the EU moving the agenda, are both in the LibDem’s favour?
Mark Pack is standing down as Lib Dem President from January 1st, so he will have more time on his hands (as if!).
I hope to engage him in suggesting ways in which members of the House of Lords can be held to account when they waste the time of the HoL repeatedly spouting inane bollocks into the national conversation, displaying the hinterland of a lobotomised slug.
(That follows a particular recent debate on aspects of 'cycling' where there were peers reading out bits of the Telegraph, and proposing amendments to introduce laws that have already been in law for nearly half a century already.)
There is a lot of space for them to be the quietly sensible and pragmatic ones, on a range of issues.
As noted by TSE Twitter has reverted to pushing folk into the 'for you' feed as default. For me this morning it was this particulary unconvincing attempt at 'I'm not a cnut, honest'.
A good family man picture of Jenrick, similar to what US Presidential candidates might do. Just a nice modest picture of him with his girls for Christmas though I am sure, as he of course definitely has no leadership ambitions anymore and thinks Kemi is a wonderful leader
Jenrick has a dilemma. For most of the past year, the thinking on the right was that Kemi would be ousted and that a replacement would be needed who could reach a pact with Reform and who could be the first Cambridge-educated Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin (see, I do read these threads). But now Kemi is on the upswing.
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
Kemi has done enough to survive until the local elections next May. However if the Tories fall to fourth in Scotland and Wales and are 3rd in the UK NEV overall even symbolic likely Tory regains of Barnet and Westminster councils likely won’t stop her facing her a VONC. With either Cleverly or Jenrick replacing her, probably the former if enough MPs back him for a coronation, maybe the latter if it went to the members but it would be close
The problem is that the BYD is half the price of the Mercedes or BMW, and not a lot different in performance or specification.
The battery side, range and charge time, is actually going to be better on the Chinese than the German vehicles.
The are nowhere near the half the price. I recently rented a BYD Sealion and Audi Q4 e-tron in quick succession so I looked up the UK prices. I could probably get the BYD for about 45 grand and the Audi for about 47 with some Dura negotiating techniques. The BYD's rear suspension was shit garbage and looked suspiciously like a CTRL-C/CTRL-V of a Qashqai (the AWD one, not the cheapo torsion bar 2WD) but the interior fit and finish was better than the Audi. I'd have the Audi out of the two mainly because it'll have better residuals.
In other BEV news, Mrs DA's new lease i5 M60 arrived at sparrowfart on Friday. I got it mainly because that c--t Harry Metcalfe didn't like it. It definitely has some BMW M DNA in it and is pretty fast (0-125mph in 13.0s on the Dragy) but not proper fast (Tributo when it works: 7.7s!) There is no credible Chinese competition yet for a product like that.
Your comparison is the previous-generation cars though, the new ones such as the Merc EQS are coming in way higher than the Chinese equivalents. Residuals on anything electric is crap at the moment, because no-one wants to buy used ones. The finance companies are even resorting to leasing used EVs to try and hold up the market.
What did Harry Metcalfe do to upset you? He’s one of the best motoring journalists in the country, and has a barn full of very nice cars to boot.
On paper I should like him because he's a fellow Paneristi but I suspect he is a leave voter and a tory. I also rarely agree with his reviews. Moaned about a GT3 RS having stiff suspension. WTF.
Re prices, BMW have suddenly become competitive: new BMW iX3 starts at £58k and although it's getting rave reviews at the moment it won't be long before it's available for £50k through a broker. The equivalent Chinese cars are a lot more than half of that. (Yes, the i5 was stupidly overpriced, especially the M60, hence them having to shift a load on heavily subsidised leases...)
I'm not sure about naming it after Ford Prefect
In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect's nickname, given by his classmates on Betelgeuse V, was "Ix," which loosely translates to "boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven," because he couldn't pronounce his actual, unpronounceable Betelgeusian name.
Plus the areas holding local and devolved elections next year are areas like London and the big metropolitan city councils, Scotland and Wales where Labour are stronger. The English counties where Labour are weakest and which had local elections last year are largely not holding elections next year.
As I said above the LDs will make some gains from Labour and the Tories and SNP
Sorry, the English councils which held local elections in May
Comments
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a783b34855474f85
It's so left field I wonder what the long term agenda is for reform - actively building social housing?
I know PB reaches far and wide but Winchcombe is a town of just 6,000 people so I would be surprised if we had two representatives here.
The options are what they always were. Take an economic hit by divergence, because friction always costs. Or share the pool with others, and accept that you won't get your way all the time.
The EU can read polls as well, so would be unlikely to want to even discuss the complexity of a customs union or our joining the single market, since there’s a greater than 50% chance we’d repudiate in three years, having taken two to negotiate it. And that’s without considering the need for Hungarian, Slovakian, and Czech agreement, and the games their Russian masters would have their PMs play on this.
Fa better to focus efforts on better relations with the EU across a thousand tiny tweaks, founded on common security, support for Ukraine, and the security of the Baltic.
And Good Morning one and all! And a fine bright one it is here.
Otherwise agree with Reform and the Greens likely the main winners next year plus Plaid in Wales and the LDs treading water as the Tories and Labour collapse
What do Reform and the Tories run on in the next election? Ignore the referendum? Hold another one? Negotiate a better deal with the EU than Labour would?
I used to think the Tories needed to finally move on from Thatcher, but look at what happened when the Republicans moved on from Reagan. Before they made that move, at least the bonkers economics was linked to some sort of residual belief in freedom and democracy.
As John Reid reportedly said.
Though Jeremy Hunt was successful - successful being avoiding any disaster while in office.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-12-22/western-intelligence-suspects-russia-is-developing-new-weapon-to-target-musks-starlink-satellites
In response to Mr eek's statement that:
All Heath Secretaries fail - it's a complete impossible job that is all downsides with zero chance of an upside...
I’m not seeing a path to rejoin just a closer union.
I don't think any good options remain, only bad and worse ones. As to 'A Custom Union', Wes may fly a kite about it, and it sounds great. But I bet anything he will not begin to outline what is involved in having both a free trade area (which we have already) and a common external tariff with the EU.
The least worst option remains EEA/EFTA.
1. Erm...
2. Um....
3. That's about it, really.
But on your first point, quite so.
As for right to buy, the principle is fine, but the discounts are way too big. Make it 2% per year of tenancy, up to a max of 20% discount, rather than starting at 35% and increasing from there!
The problem is planning.
The houses sold with right to buy still exist. The problem is our population has increased by over ten million people, and our demographics changed to need more houses per capita, and we have not constructed remotely enough houses as people object to new buildings.
It is a stressful job with plenty of downsides, but plenty of power to use as you see fit. If you can't get that to work for an upside for you, then you're just not very good at your job.
Indeed the same is likely true for most.
Both Streeting and Burnham now flying the flag for the light blues, as is Jenrick. Indeed of the 3 main party leaders only Starmer went to Oxford and then only as a postgrad in law after Leeds Uni undergrad. Farage went to the university of life and Badenoch to Sussex. Davey is the only UK party leader left now who has an Oxford PPE degree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Make it an explicit manifesto commitment for Can be done in the UK if you get the right car charger, there seem to be some bi-directional chargers on the market now, there weren't when I had mine fitted.
Charge the car offpeak and it's 8p/kWhr 24 hours/day
youtheir trophy.Unfortunately, the modern DCMS role also encompasses having to deal with the BBC.
No one has made that successful jump since the NHS existed.
Our birthrate is falling, only immigration increased the population but even net immigration is now starting to decline too
But who will be the next leader to be replaced if not Kemi? Sir Keir is under attack but there is no real mechanism to oust him, although I think he will retire anyway. But look at the discussion around better relations with the EU, Erasmus, a possible customs union and ask what of the dog who has not barked in the night time. Is Nigel Farage losing interest in politics? He is rarely sighted in Clacton or the House of Commons.
So should Jenrick defect to Reform in hope of an early leadership election? The trouble there is that man of the people Danny Kruger has beaten him to it. Still, he would almost certainly get a Cabinet post if the balloon does not pop.
I'm interested in the politics around current Government moves to consult on changes to animal welfare - the plan to ban trail hunting has been out in front, but there are also significant moves on farm welfare standards, and also a ban on "puppy farms" (whatever those are this week *).
It seems to me to be more decisive than I expect from Prime Minister Timmy Timidity.
I wonder if the underlying politics are to persuade the Tories to paint themselves into the Turnip Taliban corner. The blues are already adept at cornering themselves in some areas, due to the replacement of alternative policy with oppositionalism.
ISTM that the if the Tory leadership try to out-Farage Farage, that will be in Labour's favour.
BBC piece on the welfare ideas:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93wxd27dvko
* From my acquaintances, the last round of "action on puppy farms" had a far greater impact on small-scale hobby breeding by reducing the ceiling for the full panoply of registration, isolation facilities for ill dogs etc, from 3 to 2 litters per annum, which broke the ability to cover costs whilst maintaining welfare.
https://video.cnil.fr/w/7gruvufuf3c48oGWx39nCR
https://www.dataprotection.ie/sites/default/files/uploads/2025-11/sharenting.mp4
Hilary Benn and Stephen Kinnock come to mind in the current HoC.
Edit 'not' replacement for 'now'. FFS strikes again!
Hmm. Can we count Churchill four times? Randolph, Winston, Eden (at a stretch), Soames.
eg Migrants are a "legitimate concern" while sending people "home" to countries they have never lived in simply because they are black or Muslim is not something we approve of.
I'm not sure if I could live with a car called "Seal", unless the horn made onking noises.
There's a some stuff about more sophisticated vehicle charging schemes over on Buildhub, amongst our professional or experienced amateur electricians. But in recent years it tended to be around optimising use of complicated tariffs and solar energy to minimise bills, with the main limitation on the motor vehicle being that they did not have the gubbins installed in the vehicle to manage using it as storage, and limitations on charging cycles.
That isn’t Kemi though.
All VW, Hyundai, Kia support bi-directional charging as well.
That’s why I’d expect a vote share of low teens, in May.
The Greens have surged in the polls, but it’s the Lib Dem’s who have surged in local by/ elections (second to Reform).
https://electionmaps.uk/polling/vithe
Plus the areas holding local and devolved elections next year are areas like London and the big metropolitan city councils, Scotland and Wales where Labour are stronger. The English counties where Labour are weakest and which had local elections last year are largely not holding elections next year.
As I said above the LDs will make some gains from Labour and the Tories and SNP
The problem is not planning. Sure, more houses would be good but it isn’t going to happen. You are being naive.
Planning is being identified as a problem by developers as it is a cost. Developers don’t give a shit about the built environment or infrastructure. We need planning.
And to be clear.
There are 1.5 million unbuilt houses in developer land banks. Prices will never ever drop while the private sector is controlling the housing supply. And it does.
I hope to engage him in suggesting ways in which members of the House of Lords can be held to account when they waste the time of the HoL repeatedly spouting inane bollocks into the national conversation, displaying the hinterland of a lobotomised slug.
(That follows a particular recent debate on aspects of 'cycling' where there were peers reading out bits of the Telegraph, and proposing amendments to introduce laws that have already been in law for nearly half a century already.)
In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect's nickname, given by his classmates on Betelgeuse V, was "Ix," which loosely translates to "boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven," because he couldn't pronounce his actual, unpronounceable Betelgeusian name.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/o9wikcClnaw