Not sure I quite agree with you there. If somoene needs a new kitchen they save up for it and then pay for it to be done or get a loan get it done and pay back the loan. At some point we will need to pay for it. I've nothing against seaside towns, like I've got nothing against small town centres that shops have deserted due to things like high business rates and parking charges. Like anything just chucking money at seaside towns will not solve the issue. You need to look at why they've run down in the first place. Likely it's people can go abroad for cheaper and stopped putting their tourism pennies into these places some time ago which lead to a steady decline. Furnishing Warmington on sea with a shiney new crazy golf course is not going to stop people boozing it up in Lanzagrotty. As you've said these places need to move with the times and find another niche. Certainly not pumping poo onto the beach will help.
Well, I broke my golden rule of comparing a nation's economy with a household economy but I didn't really mean it in a literal sense. I meant that neglect leads to deprivation. What we suffer from a lot in this country is a chronic lack of imagination. I am not picking at your argument here because I quite agree with you that crazy golf courses are not the answer. The issue here is far broader. We're a country that has no ability to imagination anything except more of the same. Rejuvenating seaside towns that have lost their way for a number of reasons is not about recreating a past that probably didn't exist in the first place. As you say, it's about finding another niche. Unfortunately, the default response from a lot of people is: "Yes, but how will it be paid for?" It's such a reductive, self-defeating question – and it ignores the fact that investment (in people and things) often leads to prosperity. It's about having an idea and a vision. We demand so little from our leaders that they get away without having any ideas or vision. And we fall for the laziest, easiest question: "How will it be paid for?" instead of asking the question: "What do we actually want Britain to be?" Unfortunately with the reactionary foghorns making a disproportionate amount of noise, the sort of Britain we're ending up with is really quite shoddy. I listened to a podcast this week in which Barney Ronay made what I thought was a perceptive point. The furore about the flag on the England shirt is not the sort of subject a happy, optimistic, healthy country has, he said. It's the sort of argument a fearful, depressed, stagnating and angry country has. And that, for me, sums up so much about Britain. Our media, our politicians, our general acceptance of everything being a rip-off, are all bleak, cynical and unimaginative. We feel there's little we can do about anything, so we just recycle the same tired ideas and questions. It would be far more productive to take one small step in the right direction and see if we can't follow it with another small step in the right direction, then another, then another. But it feels like that is beyond us.
I do quite enjoy a round of crazy golf so it might tempt me. I have no issue with using spare cash to invest in failing towns. The operative word being spare cash. When I look at the complete lack of order in the social care sector, schools being partially closed due to dodgy concrete, under resourced hosiptal facilities I think these are areas which need the cash first.
I always compare this to a company spending £15 or £20k at a trade show, taking people off the orad, putting them up in hotels, meals etc. A show costs them £30k for a week, but they don't get any of that back instantly, it probably takes years to turn that investment into profit. I'm all for rejuvenating towns with investment, but it has to align with creating employment. Not just great big blue Amazon warehouses running along side the local A road, but future jobs in engineering, energy, medicines etc. Jobs or skills that we as a nation can then export around the world. Brining in monies from overseas into our economy eases the overall burden on everyone and means that we can spend more of our internal money on our essential needs.
A great example of the long pay back is the Eiffel Tower. It was derided during its construction as a catastrophic waste of money. Now an incalculable asset. However, there has to be acceptance that not all projects will pay off. There is also a problem with too much foreign, non UK State investment. There has been a huge flow of capital into the UK in the last 30 years. The result is that the UK State is short of assets and prices have risen for everyone. The cost of a home in the UK is directly related to huge overseas investment. Too much capital is not a good thing when it’s held by a few and is profoundly anti-democratic, leads to laws and initiatives (like Freeports) that the overseas wealthy like, but do not benefit citizens.
All the infostructure and investment should come from the UK state, where possible UK materials, companies in the supply chain etc. OK its a little trickly down economics, but managed in the right way internally creates wider jobs, skills and a wider economy. The UK need to make the investment in product and services that we can then sell to bring new money into our economy, ideally through British companies and more importantly British companies that pay tax, rather than the Amazons of this world.
Would you describe yourself as a ‘big state’ advocate? There are a lot of ‘UK first’ advocates, for example to train and pay UK workers enough to fill our health service needs without immigration. I rarely find them to be advocates for the state to intervene or the kind of significant state investment and regulation this requires. It’s my essential problem with Brexit. It’s a UK first strategy made by people who don’t understand what it requires are in fact completely set against what is required. It’s therefore fantasy, just hot air until we have a real debate about wealth and taxation.
Not really. We'll never have enough UK citizens to fill the roles in the NHS or any other vital service in the country. There's a reason why we have needed immigration since the 2nd WW to fill jobs and bring new skills to our shores. Procurement, contracts etc that are delivered and supplied by British industries is good for our economy. British businesses making profit, employing more people, who pay tax, giving them a higher wage, a better way of life, is essential to making our standards better. Why would we spend £xbn with an overseas company to build our infostructure, only for that company to put the profits into their own countries economy? If we have a business in the UK who can do the same job, ok it might cost a bit more, but it creates jobs, skills, opportunities, for our workers. Eventually through the system it pays for it's self. Wales isn't a country - its a unit of measurement, as in "the fire spread to an area the size of Wales"
I’m not sure it should be categorised as ‘trickle down economics’ at all. It seems to be very similar to what myself and such as ETG and Moose have championed. The main issue is having a UK government that has the desire to actually implement such infrastructure projects.
The thing is, you are advocating a highly regulated, interventionist state. We have got into the difficulties you identify through unfettered worship of the market, so, for example, we don’t maintain infrastructure because in the very short term it is cheaper to let France run our energy, Germany or South Korea build our trains etc but very costly in the long run. The efforts required to turn that around are enormous and would be slammed by the press. The Tories won’t do it and if Labour tries it would be (laughably) called ‘communist.’ There may also be real limits as to what we can do that need proper debate. We can’t sell to the World if it can’t sell to us. So I still wonder where you are on it. And I also don’t get the reference to Wales.
Unfortunately we won't get that. Our level of politician or so called leaders to drive significant long term change, plans for the next 30 or 40 years, is lacking. Everything is based around the next 5 years, by 2025, 2030...... You never hear of real infostructure and structural plans to take us past 2050, 2060. Starmer is talking about a decade of renewal - 10 years, Sunak won't be there in 10 months, maybe not even 10 weeks. Who ever replaces him will be talking about the next 5 years. I don't see a single politician or party that has any real long term plans. I probably need new glasses, i read the comment above on my phone as wealth and taxation. as Wales and Taxation
This has literally been the Tory model (and, to be fair, Labour's model before that) for two decades. Every time you take a train or turn on your heating you are literally subsidising services in France and Germany. Foreign Govts saw the value of achieving soft power by buying up industry in Britain and funnelling the profits back home. It staggered me during the Brexit debate that hardly anyone seemed to appreciate that the problem wasn't 'immigrants', it was selling off the country's assets to foreign companies. People who froth at the mouth at the sound of a Polish accent in the high street didn't seem to be quite so angry that Electricité de France was providing their power or that Lidl and Aldi was funnelling all their profit back to Germany.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49061-yougov-mrp-labour-now-projected-to-win-over-400-seats The longer Sunak holds on, the worse the polls are getting for the Tories. And this one’s a particular complex poll. Since last time they ran it in January it’s got Labour +18 and Tories -14. If this poll were to become reality it would be a bigger wipeout than 1997.
December 2019 seems a very long time ago - remember the discussions about Johnson being virtually guaranteed 10 years, with his massive 80 seat majority! What a delicious conundrum for the Tories - continue the Sunak death spiral or roll the dice again (to derision and surely irresistible calls for an immediate GE).
Is Will Dray still writing the questions for yougov ? https://www.theguardian.com/politic...k-working-with-tory-rebels-trying-to-oust-him It will be interesting to see the sample size of this poll. https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/polls/general-election Most are around 2,000 people, but it looks like YG had a huge sample of 18,000 people in March. Either way its a trouncing for the Tories, next months locals will be a real indicator of the effects of Gazza, Boats, Cost of Living, Council houses etc If Starmer doesn't get the results that he should, losing councils he expects to win to the Lib Dems or Independents, then it must reflect just how big his majority will be in the GE. He'll be looking at the Red Wall areas and seeing what influence idiots like Galloway have had and if it will effect his vote.
I honestly expected this to be more wins for Labour even if it is just in the last year. OK its local elections, which means the protest vote party always do well, but even so... https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1776204493413085447 Aggregate Result of the 166 Council By-Elections for 168 Seats Since LE2023: LDM: 51 (+20) LAB: 50 (-2) CON: 29 (-18) GRN: 16 (+6) IND: 15 (+2) LOC: 5 (-2) PLC: 2 (-1) SNP: 0 (-5)
https://www.countbinface.com/2024-manifesto Binface has some new manifesto pledges I can get behind. I particulary like: 12. Speakerphones to be banned on public transport, with offenders forced to watch a box set of The One Show. 17. Shops that play Christmas music before December to be closed down and turned into public libraries. 21. The Trocadero to be turned back into a truly top-notch video arcade.
I think the problem is that the Tories won the Red Wall and the other gullible English votes with a house of cards. Vote for us, we'll get Brexit done and then you'll start to see your northern slums turn into lovely little communities of hard working, well to-d0, white people with housing and services for all. The fact that it was never going to deliver that was never explored.
For me, the local elections in 3 weeks will determined just how much of a majority Starmer after the general election. It will show if the polls have been correct or if Labour have lost some popularity because of Palestine or Reynor. We know that there will be a low turnout, but local elections always have, especially knowing there is a general election later this year. But thats the same for all parties. Tories we know won't vote in numbers, so its a case of how many Tories Labour have converted v who else has picked up those votes. Of the 107 councils holding elections, 73 have a single-party majority: 45 are Labour-run - He has to keep hold of all of these, anything else is a huge dent in his campaign 18 are Conservative-run - How many of these does he look to take full control of? At least 9? Maybe he would be happy with moving half of these to no overall control, but is that enough? 10 are Liberal Democrat-run - Don't think he will be bothered if he doesn't win these. 34 are under no overall control - He must be looking at converting some of these, maybe 8 or 10, some will go to LibDems, but he can't afford to lose any of these to the Tories. As I said above, his record in local elections isn't wondrful, https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1776204493413085447 but this has to be the barometer to October/November and the majority he will work with.
I'm not so sure the locals will be a huge indicator with respect to the upcoming general. Those that vote in these tend to be those that vote on local issues or as a protest to the goevernment mid term. Meister Manor has by and large been blue forever although there are labour pockets, the Tory lead council are decent and on the whole not about ripping the residents off. If it does go red however then yes it'll be certain armageddon for the Tories come the end of the year. Personally still not sure how I'll vote. I'll need to hold my nose and tactically vote for the Tory Mayor canditate in the vain hope of ousting the incumbent waste of space. But when it coems to the council do I again hold my nose and vote for people doing a decent job even if they represent a government I can't back?
Voting for Susan Hall is plain barmy. She’s an Enoch Powell fan, Trump ‘stolen election’ conspiraloon and utter embarrassment.
True. It's a sad state of affairs when not one (sensible) candidate is a decent option. Maybe I'll revert to what I did last time and simply draw a male chicken and some spheres on the ballot paper.
Count Binface has a splendid manifesto. edit - you've already seen it. Nonetheless, here it is in its full glory.
The tragedy would be hearing why, five years later, he failed to deliver his manifesto pledge to build an affordable home.
Rumours from "several sources", including Nadine Dorries, that an election date announcement is imminent.....possibly on Monday. This does make some sense to me. Many senior Tories, including Sunak, don't believe the Rwanda plan will work (batshit). They may be thinking that it might be best to go to the country before this becomes apparent. It could mean a June election with them hoping that the weather will prevent too many boat crossings between now and then and the promise of a solution to the problem, in the guise of the Rwanda deportations, post election. I don't think it will be enough to save the Tory government but it might get some of their wayward support back in line. We shall see....
The Times reported on Saturday that there were rumblings in the parliamentary party to this effect. It strikes me as a bit odd not to wait for the outcome of the local elections, though, which will be known by this time next week.
I thought the same but perhaps they think (know?) that the local elections are going to be so dire for them that they are hoping that this announcement will go some way to overshadow them. I may be being overly optimistic but I think this is starting to make sense. The last few weeks has shown that any day that has nice weather also has boat crossings. The Tories might be calculating that a summer of daily crossings is only going to make their popularity even worse. Ironically it's them that put this issue front and foremost in the electorate's mind!
