Not bothered if he's in, out or shakes it all about. Just glad that grinning moron is out of office now. Let's see how long he can keep his promises via is manifesto before it all comes crumbling down.
Another one here too… rather than choosing the best of the bunch of lawyers who happen to be elected, Starmer’s appointed someone reputedly at the top of his game.
And a third… the Chief Exec of Timpsons who has done loads of great work on rehabilitation of prisoners given responsibility for that brief in government.
You’re right. A well respected Tory ex-minister assured us that ‘the public’ (ie such as thee & me) are ‘sick and tired of experts’.
Starmer hasnt attacked a single minority and has been giving experts in their fields jobs they can do, not what I expect from my Government at all, outraged.
Very well thought of abroad apparently. Particularly in the US, where even the MAGA Republicans in Trump's orbit have (surprisingly) expressed respect for him.
Good to hear Rachel Reeves announce plans to concrete over great swathes of countryside to build lots of new housing estates. One quick question: who is going to build them now that all the builders who knew how to lay one brick on top of another have buggered off back to Poland?
As someone who works in housebuilding I welcome poor areas of, or previously developed green belt (aka grey belt) being released for development. However, to say the private sector has to fund this isn’t solving the problem. Nor is saying 50% affordable housing is to be “targeted” on the land. This is just allowing land owners and developers to continue to dictate the supply of housing and targets won’t be met because of viability constraints (land was too expensive, build costs are too high, values in the area are too low etc) so more private housing, less affordable is delivered. Housing Associations and Local Authority Housing departments need funding, not having rent caps enforced on them making them have to compete on land against the Barratts and Bellways. Your final point is bang on though. The industry has failed to reduce the skills gap we’ve lost.
Too many people in prison? https://www.theguardian.com/comment...s-new-prisons-minister-is-perfect-for-the-job Guess they will let those out who are in for petty crimes.
The people on Social Media criticising Govt over this will be the same ones asking why they’re not locking up Just Stop Oil protesters in a month or so. Despite the prisons being over-crowded, under-funded and no new ones built on Tory’s watch.
I asked the wife (whose a planning officer) what she made of Reeves speech and the thinking seems to be that without some detail fleshing out the bones then all thats been offered is nothing that different to what already exists under planning law. 'Grey belt' isnt even a recognized term under planning so that will need to be defined in planning. However its already possible to build on previously developed green belt as long as it doesnt further impact the green belt or effect the openness of the green belt. She's going to be hard pushed to make much difference to viability constraints in any meaningful way and 'more private housing, less affordable' is exactly what the big house builders like Barratts do their upmost to deliver anyway - and will continue to try and do so, because they are excessively greedy. Until Reeves has reviewed the NPPP we wont know the acutal details of whats being offered. But until then, on the face of it, there doesnt appear to be big changes.
Yes, I should’ve put grey belt in inverted commas as it’s a term that has been used only recently. I’ve sat in planning meetings where the councils have rejected developing on or adjacent to previously approved travellers’ sites in the green belt. Another (Labour run) council approved a former field in the green belt as it had been through proper consultation, they needed housing and it provided a new School. Completely agree it needs a new National Policy so councils know what they are delegating against
I had an inkling it was a big load of nothing but to be honest she's only had a couple of days in the job and is it really Chancellor territory? She needs to look at stamp duty as a first call to getting the housing market moving. Cancel it for primary residences and up it for multiples. If property is purchased and rented out then consider discounting stamp duty on those properties dependign on affordability. What we need to disuade is multiple empty home ownership, purely for investment.
Yep, at the moment they can make a splash about everything they do and it will look revoloutinary. I've never heard a chancellor arrive in office and say "hey look there is loads of money left" Saying that they want to grow the economy is a great thing to say, but again I've never heard anyone say "we need to shrink the economy" If it was as easy as Reeves makes it sound, then us and every other country would have done it by now. Streeting saying that they will open discussions with Junior Doctors, as if there has been no previous discussions. Surely there must have been some for the provirus pay offer to be rejected? The tests come when one of the cabinet say or do something stupid and Starmer has to sack one of his allies. Thornberry making comments about it being no issue to increase class sizes, seems to have back fired and she has paid the price. But that hardly falls into the scandal category. At this stage its all about doing things his way and getting that message out there. Sound bites are good, but until the budget and probably 12 months have passed, we won't know what the good, bad or ugly are.
I think we need to wait for the King's Speech next week to get a proper sense. It seems pretty certain Labour will bring forward a planning reform bill as a centrepiece of that and once that's released in draft we'll be able to see how radical (or not) it is. I think yesterday was very much about low hanging fruit - overturning the de facto ban on onshore windfarms was something that could be done with the stroke of a government pen. The NPPF will be reviewed, though I doubt that'll fall in the Treasury's remit. I think they're bringing in former Tory minister Nick Boles to do it, presumably under Rayner's department. But ultimately you can't move the goalposts too far in the UK without primary legislation and that'll be the way any bigger changes will be passed.
Meanwhile, RIP 'levelling up' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0veqgr7lw4o Hopefully the civil servants kept the pre-Boris signs and letterheaded paper out back somewhere.
Was always a transparent fig leaf, simply something Johnson said to beat Corbyn. Then they had to invent what it meant, which was in essence rewarding areas for voting Tory and punishing them for voting Labour. The worst sort of national Government. Good riddance.
I cant see this house building idea getting anywhere. Better off putting your eggs in the other infrastructure building required. Like non carbon power stations, transport, distribution and innovation, schools and health facilities. The peak of house building occurred when local authorities had in house teams (Direct Labour Organisations), that designed and built all those estates of semi detached houses you see around the place. Watford built the Holywell estate between the mid 1950s and early 1970s, the estates at Leavesden Green and Woodside among others. They built houses to reduce their waiting lists. The post war concensus to reduce overcrowding and to provide decent housing. The nationalised coal board also built great estates around the new pits sunk after WW2. The thing about councils building, is that they bought the land and built the houses using the rents as an accumulator to carry on buying land and building. The Housing Revenue Accounts were not comparable with the accounts of a private company. That mechanism has completely gone now. You rely on Housing Assiciations (which are private rental companies), to use government money to build. Their financing requires a return, and they have no responsibility to house the homeless. That still sits with councils. private sector house builders need to extract a profit. They land bank permissions and ensure that supply does not result in price stagnation. New house prices are always at a premium, because house builders can throttle back supply. So in all the equation, finding land to build on is not the difficult part. It is finding a motivation to invest in the building industry and a new mechanism to deliver profit. After all if you are in the housing building business, the last thing you want is to exhaust the demand for new housing. Simply relying on the market for replacement of the existing stock for your new business.
