Since the selection of a new leader is not done by asking the members who they would like as leader out of a field of 12 or so, and then choosing the one who gets the most votes, this polling tells you very little. It would be a bit more useful if they asked which of the potential candidates members would least like as next leader; I wouldn't be surprised if Boris topped that ranking as well.
But before any candidate can even get that far, they have to survive the trial by sharp knives of the multiple rounds of MPs' votes. So no JRM for a starter, but other than that, if the contest is soon the two finalists will be one from the preferred list of Remain supporters (excluding Ruth Davidson) and one from the preferred list of Leave supporters.
Having said that, the support for Ruth Davidson - who cannot even be a candidate at the moment, and who isn't all that well known amongst party members in England, is strikingly high. My own view is that she is the only one of those named whose selection would be a complete game-changer (and in a good way!). She of course may not want the job, but if she can be persuaded, the party should find a way to make it possible.
There may be some truth in what you say. However, she may find out she is the political equivalent of Glasgow Celtic. We will see.
Since the selection of a new leader is not done by asking the members who they would like as leader out of a field of 12 or so, and then choosing the one who gets the most votes, this polling tells you very little. It would be a bit more useful if they asked which of the potential candidates members would least like as next leader; I wouldn't be surprised if Boris topped that ranking as well.
But before any candidate can even get that far, they have to survive the trial by sharp knives of the multiple rounds of MPs' votes. So no JRM for a starter, but other than that, if the contest is soon the two finalists will be one from the preferred list of Remain supporters (excluding Ruth Davidson) and one from the preferred list of Leave supporters.
Having said that, the support for Ruth Davidson - who cannot even be a candidate at the moment, and who isn't all that well known amongst party members in England, is strikingly high. My own view is that she is the only one of those named whose selection would be a complete game-changer (and in a good way!). She of course may not want the job, but if she can be persuaded, the party should find a way to make it possible.
You've got two more-or-less proven election winners in that poll -- Ruth and Boris -- and they came first and second. It may be that members are prioritising that factor even over Brexit.
Yes, even if Corbyn does win next time I expect the Tories in opposition will have far more opportunity to make headway than they did from 1997 to 2001
You've got two more-or-less proven election winners in that poll -- Ruth and Boris -- and they came first and second. It may be that members are prioritising that factor even over Brexit.
Election-winning potential will certainly be the key factor for many, along with the ability to take over control as PM immediately (not easy for anyone who hasn't been a cabinet minister). However, views on electability can and will change as the various politicians get more exposure, so it's difficult to predict how that factor will play out.
It certainly is. I have to say, normally the first episode back after a break is the best and the one on a couple of weeks didn't disappoint. Jezza would be happy as all Amazon Alexas and Google Homes are replaced by white working class folks who lost their traditional jobs.
I know people who think it's lost I, but I got back into it after years of not watching and think it's usually very good. Certainly better than any show should be after 20 years. Add the critically acclaimed and fantastic game which was like a playable extra season and they're going strong.
It certainly is. I have to say, normally the first episode back after a break is the best and the one on a couple of weeks didn't disappoint. Jezza would be happy as all Amazon Alexas and Google Homes are replaced by white working class folks who lost their traditional jobs.
I know people who think it's lost I, but I got back into it after years of not watching and think it's usually very good. Certainly better than any show should be after 20 years. Add the critically acclaimed and fantastic game which was like a playable extra season and they're going strong.
Personally, I don't think it is anywhere near as good on a consistent basis. But when they are good, they are still very good.
Yes, even if Corbyn does win next time I expect the Tories in opposition will have far more opportunity to make headway than they did from 1997 to 2001
Richard Nabavi is of course right. Tory members will get a choice of two given to them by MPs. Do that list is largely irrelevant even before the inclusion of the ineligible Davidson skews things further. Interesting mood music but nothing more. Also at this stage it's influenced by name recognition as well.
The big question for Boris rampers is this ? Will Tory MPs remove the fire wall between the Tory brand and the Leave campaign completely by electing Boris ?
I still think the betting value is on the most militant Leaver we've never heard of vs ex Remain, Big Beast for the next contest with the militant Leaver we've never heard of winning.
I still think the betting value is on the most militant Leaver we've never heard of vs ex Remain, Big Beast for the next contest with the militant Leaver we've never heard of winning.
I still think the betting value is on the most militant Leaver we've never heard of vs ex Remain, Big Beast for the next contest with the militant Leaver we've never heard of winning.
Yes, even if Corbyn does win next time I expect the Tories in opposition will have far more opportunity to make headway than they did from 1997 to 2001
It has to be Boris, in the same way it had to be Osborne, Davis, Clarke, Hestletine and John Moore.
One final post from me, Tory members want a proven winner, as Decrepit JohnL says, unless and until another contender starts to perform well with the public in the polls Boris is the contender to beat
For any early birds, Elon Musk is going to give a presentation in fifty minutes about his new plans for Mars. Two images he's released early show ships on Mars and the Moon.
I think rather that ther country is more polarised, fractured even, than it has been since Thatcher's time. The next election should be decided by those still in the centre, and at the moment no one is appealing to them.
I'm running out family friendly words to describe my loathing for Theresa May.
The Conservatives would have won a 42-seat majority in June’s general election if they had secured the same level of support among minority ethnic Britons as they did among white voters, analysis has found.
The report, by the British Future thinktank, identifies what it calls an “ethnic minority voting gap” that cost Theresa May 600,000 votes and an extra 28 seats.
It argues that while David Cameron sought to emphasise a broadening of the Conservative appeal to voters, including the party’s historically poor support from black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons, May had reversed this process.
The authors also reveal that May rarely visited party workers, fearing that Conservative HQ was “a pit of germs”. “There were quite a lot of germs flying around,” one Conservative source said.
I think we can safely set contempt levels to maximum for that little gem.
She's a fucking [moderated] who deserves to [censored] and exiled to France for her treachery to the party and country.
She's a total and utter [deleted] she should [redacted] off.
If May is a traitor to her party and country what does that make Osborne?
Osborne helped take the Tory party from 198 MPs to 331 MPs.
He's a patriot.
When ranking his achievements, Osborne can take much, much more credit for the UK moving from inside the EU to outside the EU. The way his Project Fear campaign blew up in his face still makes me wonder if he was a Leave sleeper agent, proving even more effective than Boris in getting that Leave vote over the line.
Anybody who could read the political mood so badly deserves to be banished to the political wilderness of the London Evening Standard. If only he had been reading pb.com, he would have known how badly it was playing.
"Within quite a range of circumstances, purely political action, however necessary it might sometimes be, does not produce the happy economic results expected of it. Prosperity for whole nations or large groups of people cannot simply be conjured by political fiat from a total economic product that already exists. The people themselves must have the attributes necessary to prosper; and no amount of political posturing by their leaders, whether they be self-appointed or democratically elected, will give them those attributes."
In his talk, Musk has said they want to use their Big F****** Rocket for passenger transport on Earth: from point to point, anywhere on Earth, within an hour.
Crazy, or time to to sell Boeing and Airbus stocks?
So this poll says that Theresa May is the favoured choice of Tory members to lead them into the next election?
She has a proven track record of keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. The rest? Not so much.
With an election camapign that starts planning years ahead, a manifesto tested to destruction with focus groups (rather than a thought exercise in "how many of our core can we piss off?", written down the pub on the back of a fag packet) and an approach of "you know exactly what you get with Theresa" contrasting with Labour's bat-shit crazy time machine to the Seventies - they might just be right.
It also assumes Brexit has happened and hasn't been The Full Venkman: human sacrifice, dogs and cats and living togther... mass hysteria!
2. The Hawksmoor - a variety of locations. Good food but very focused on meat.
Now shoot me down...........
San Carlo Cicchetti sounds good.
San Carlo have been in Leicester for 20 years, and are one of my favourites. Ranieri treated the Leicester City team there the day that they won the Premier League.
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
So this poll says that Theresa May is the favoured choice of Tory members to lead them into the next election?
She has a proven track record of keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. The rest? Not so much.
With an election camapign that starts planning years ahead, a manifesto tested to destruction with focus groups (rather than a thought exercise in "how many of our core can we piss off?", written down the pub on the back of a fag packet) and an approach of "you know exactly what you get with Theresa" contrasting with Labour's bat-shit crazy time machine to the Seventies - they might just be right.
It also assumes Brexit has happened and hasn't been The Full Venkman: human sacrifice, dogs and cats and living togther... mass hysteria!
Another election with TM as leader would be fun, like kicking at an open goal.
So this poll says that Theresa May is the favoured choice of Tory members to lead them into the next election?
She has a proven track record of keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. The rest? Not so much.
With an election camapign that starts planning years ahead, a manifesto tested to destruction with focus groups (rather than a thought exercise in "how many of our core can we piss off?", written down the pub on the back of a fag packet) and an approach of "you know exactly what you get with Theresa" contrasting with Labour's bat-shit crazy time machine to the Seventies - they might just be right.
It also assumes Brexit has happened and hasn't been The Full Venkman: human sacrifice, dogs and cats and living togther... mass hysteria!
"She has a proven track record of keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. The rest? Not so much."
Well her track record is one of losing ground to Jeremy Corbyn, making him look like a winner and making it certain that he will lead Labour into the next election. So, her track record is one of making it more likely that Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister. The rest? Well, they haven't had their chance - yet.
Continuing on the housebuilding/land hoarding theme from yesterday:
"Lately the government has become keener on large-scale housing developments. They tend to be farther from NIMBY-ish residents, and local authorities find it easier to manage one big project than lots of small ones. But they can give large builders local monopolies. To maximise profits on a plot, the builder may ration supply, putting up houses gradually rather than completing them all at once.
There is circumstantial evidence of this process at work. One study in 2014 looked at sites in London where more than 500 homes were earmarked and found that it was rare to build more than 100 of them a year. Research by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP), a consultancy, suggests that as the size of a plot goes up, the annual rate of building gets relatively smaller."
The question I would ask is - if rationing supply of housing/building slower increases profits - aren't companies acting in the best interest of their shareholders to do this?
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Boris is our more intelligent and classically educated Trump, in as much as he's for himself first and the policies are structured around that aim. He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM. The interesting question is what will he do then?
Since the selection of a new leader is not done by asking the members who they would like as leader out of a field of 12 or so, and then choosing the one who gets the most votes, this polling tells you very little. It would be a bit more useful if they asked which of the potential candidates members would least like as next leader; I wouldn't be surprised if Boris topped that ranking as well.
But before any candidate can even get that far, they have to survive the trial by sharp knives of the multiple rounds of MPs' votes. So no JRM for a starter, but other than that, if the contest is soon the two finalists will be one from the preferred list of Remain supporters (excluding Ruth Davidson) and one from the preferred list of Leave supporters.
Having said that, the support for Ruth Davidson - who cannot even be a candidate at the moment, and who isn't all that well known amongst party members in England, is strikingly high. My own view is that she is the only one of those named whose selection would be a complete game-changer (and in a good way!). She of course may not want the job, but if she can be persuaded, the party should find a way to make it possible.
Be careful what you wish for, it may be not what you want. Ruthie is not popular within the Scottish Tories, mostly for having a clique of favourites and not being collegiate. Also, she is a very voluble remainer, if in power, Brexit will not just be kicked into the long grass, it will be given a decent burial (with a stake through the heart, a silver bullet through the brain and cloves of garlic filling the coffin)...
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Boris is our more intelligent and classically educated Trump, in as much as he's for himself first and the policies are structured around that aim. He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM. The interesting question is what will he do then?
Have a vision and express it.
Implementation is a different matter, as is consistency and tough decisions.
the support for Ruth Davidson - who cannot even be a candidate at the moment, and who isn't all that well known amongst party members in England, is strikingly high. My own view is that she is the only one of those named whose selection would be a complete game-changer (and in a good way!). She of course may not want the job, but if she can be persuaded, the party should find a way to make it possible.
Speaking as someone who has been betting against her and JRM... what would need to happen for her to become leader?
Find her a safe seat somehow before the next GE? Lead the party from outside the Commons (is that even possible these days)? Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Boris is our more intelligent and classically educated Trump, in as much as he's for himself first and the policies are structured around that aim. He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM. The interesting question is what will he do then?
Have a vision and express it.
Implementation is a different matter, as is consistency and tough decisions.
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Boris is our more intelligent and classically educated Trump, in as much as he's for himself first and the policies are structured around that aim. He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM. The interesting question is what will he do then?
A bit too often we find ourselves with leaders who have schemed to become leader, but have little clue what to do when they get there, other than to destroy the legacy of their predecessor. Jezza is an oddity in that he doesnt fit that mould. He is driven by what he wants to do and can hardly be described as a careerist.
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
This is the only realistic possibility although winning a Scottish seat might be difficult in the teeth of the Brexit Backlash. Even for Kim Jong Ruth.
So this poll says that Theresa May is the favoured choice of Tory members to lead them into the next election?
She has a proven track record of keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. The rest? Not so much.
With an election camapign that starts planning years ahead, a manifesto tested to destruction with focus groups (rather than a thought exercise in "how many of our core can we piss off?", written down the pub on the back of a fag packet) and an approach of "you know exactly what you get with Theresa" contrasting with Labour's bat-shit crazy time machine to the Seventies - they might just be right.
It also assumes Brexit has happened and hasn't been The Full Venkman: human sacrifice, dogs and cats and living togther... mass hysteria!
"She has a proven track record of keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. The rest? Not so much."
Well her track record is one of losing ground to Jeremy Corbyn, making him look like a winner and making it certain that he will lead Labour into the next election. So, her track record is one of making it more likely that Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister. The rest? Well, they haven't had their chance - yet.
In my defence, I was being a bit of a devilish advocate, saying the unsayable! But then, they are ten a penny round here....
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
This is the only realistic possibility although winning a Scottish seat might be difficult in the teeth of the Brexit Backlash. Even for Kim Jong Ruth.
Ruth Davidsons Conservatives, for strong and stable leadership, not a coalition of chaos.
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
This is the only realistic possibility although winning a Scottish seat might be difficult in the teeth of the Brexit Backlash. Even for Kim Jong Ruth.
She won Edinburgh Central for the Scottish Parliament. From fourth.
In reality we have no idea if she can actually run anything yet, which seems a bit of a pre-requisite to me, but she is a formidable campaigner.
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Boris is our more intelligent and classically educated Trump, in as much as he's for himself first and the policies are structured around that aim. He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM. The interesting question is what will he do then?
Have a vision and express it.
Implementation is a different matter, as is consistency and tough decisions.
Continuing on the housebuilding/land hoarding theme from yesterday:
"Lately the government has become keener on large-scale housing developments. They tend to be farther from NIMBY-ish residents, and local authorities find it easier to manage one big project than lots of small ones. But they can give large builders local monopolies. To maximise profits on a plot, the builder may ration supply, putting up houses gradually rather than completing them all at once.
There is circumstantial evidence of this process at work. One study in 2014 looked at sites in London where more than 500 homes were earmarked and found that it was rare to build more than 100 of them a year. Research by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP), a consultancy, suggests that as the size of a plot goes up, the annual rate of building gets relatively smaller."
The question I would ask is - if rationing supply of housing/building slower increases profits - aren't companies acting in the best interest of their shareholders to do this?
There's also a question of sustainable development rates. What developers want is a relatively steady rate of building, where they can move people through the pipeline from one job to another without gluts or dearths. By building a smaller number per year, you make it more sustainable from a business point of view.
Take my village as an example: about 4,250 homes and 12,000 people. Work started in 1998, and the entire complex will probably be completed next year. (*) The development was so big that it was split up between three separate developers, a decision that has led to some advantages when it comes to housing styles.
So that makes about 200 houses a year over twenty years.
Would our increasingly ill-named 'village' be as pleasant if it had been built in ten years? Five? I doubt it.
(*) I fully expect the Cambourne West development to start next year, meaning that the remaining developers will be able to move people and kit over.
I'm running out family friendly words to describe my loathing for Theresa May.
The Conservatives would have won a 42-seat majority in June’s general election if they had secured the same level of support among minority ethnic Britons as they did among white voters, analysis has found.
The report, by the British Future thinktank, identifies what it calls an “ethnic minority voting gap” that cost Theresa May 600,000 votes and an extra 28 seats.
It argues that while David Cameron sought to emphasise a broadening of the Conservative appeal to voters, including the party’s historically poor support from black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons, May had reversed this process.
The authors also reveal that May rarely visited party workers, fearing that Conservative HQ was “a pit of germs”. “There were quite a lot of germs flying around,” one Conservative source said.
I think we can safely set contempt levels to maximum for that little gem.
She's a fucking [moderated] who deserves to [censored] and exiled to France for her treachery to the party and country.
She's a total and utter [deleted] she should [redacted] off.
If May is a traitor to her party and country what does that make Osborne?
Osborne helped take the Tory party from 198 MPs to 331 MPs.
He's a patriot.
When ranking his achievements, Osborne can take much, much more credit for the UK moving from inside the EU to outside the EU. The way his Project Fear campaign blew up in his face still makes me wonder if he was a Leave sleeper agent, proving even more effective than Boris in getting that Leave vote over the line.
Anybody who could read the political mood so badly deserves to be banished to the political wilderness of the London Evening Standard. If only he had been reading pb.com, he would have known how badly it was playing.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Boris is our more intelligent and classically educated Trump, in as much as he's for himself first and the policies are structured around that aim. He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM. The interesting question is what will he do then?
Have a vision and express it.
Implementation is a different matter, as is consistency and tough decisions.
And not shagging around.
But we have a long history of PMs shagging outside matrimony.
I'm running out family friendly words to describe my loathing for Theresa May.
The Conservatives would have won a 42-seat majority in June’s general election if they had secured the same level of support among minority ethnic Britons as they did among white voters, analysis has found.
The report, by the British Future thinktank, identifies what it calls an “ethnic minority voting gap” that cost Theresa May 600,000 votes and an extra 28 seats.
It argues that while David Cameron sought to emphasise a broadening of the Conservative appeal to voters, including the party’s historically poor support from black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons, May had reversed this process.
The authors also reveal that May rarely visited party workers, fearing that Conservative HQ was “a pit of germs”. “There were quite a lot of germs flying around,” one Conservative source said.
I think we can safely set contempt levels to maximum for that little gem.
She's a fucking [moderated] who deserves to [censored] and exiled to France for her treachery to the party and country.
She's a total and utter [deleted] she should [redacted] off.
If May is a traitor to her party and country what does that make Osborne?
Osborne helped take the Tory party from 198 MPs to 331 MPs.
He's a patriot.
When ranking his achievements, Osborne can take much, much more credit for the UK moving from inside the EU to outside the EU. The way his Project Fear campaign blew up in his face still makes me wonder if he was a Leave sleeper agent, proving even more effective than Boris in getting that Leave vote over the line.
Anybody who could read the political mood so badly deserves to be banished to the political wilderness of the London Evening Standard. If only he had been reading pb.com, he would have known how badly it was playing.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
I must have missed something. Osborne called the referendum?
F1: mildly amused Alonso (one of the few midfield/backmarker team drivers I didn't back) was third in first practice. Can't recall the odds, probably 51 or 101 (fifth that for top three).
I think P2 is from 8am. Pre-qualifying will be up later today.
On-topic: this is unsurprising, but the PCP shouldn't assume May will step down. She's proven to be poor at discerning what people want, and varies between indecisive and reckless.
Continuing on the housebuilding/land hoarding theme from yesterday:
"Lately the government has become keener on large-scale housing developments. They tend to be farther from NIMBY-ish residents, and local authorities find it easier to manage one big project than lots of small ones. But they can give large builders local monopolies. To maximise profits on a plot, the builder may ration supply, putting up houses gradually rather than completing them all at once.
There is circumstantial evidence of this process at work. One study in 2014 looked at sites in London where more than 500 homes were earmarked and found that it was rare to build more than 100 of them a year. Research by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP), a consultancy, suggests that as the size of a plot goes up, the annual rate of building gets relatively smaller."
The question I would ask is - if rationing supply of housing/building slower increases profits - aren't companies acting in the best interest of their shareholders to do this?
There's also a question of sustainable development rates. What developers want is a relatively steady rate of building, where they can move people through the pipeline from one job to another without gluts or dearths. By building a smaller number per year, you make it more sustainable from a business point of view.
Take my village as an example: about 4,250 homes and 12,000 people. Work started in 1998, and the entire complex will probably be completed next year. (*) The development was so big that it was split up between three separate developers, a decision that has led to some advantages when it comes to housing styles.
So that makes about 200 houses a year over twenty years.
Would our increasingly ill-named 'village' be as pleasant if it had been built in ten years? Five? I doubt it.
(*) I fully expect the Cambourne West development to start next year, meaning that the remaining developers will be able to move people and kit over.
I don't really understand what you mean about sustainable development. If your village had been built in 5 years - then there might be less likelihood of gluts or dearths, because the building would be much more concentrated.
As to the impact on the local community - some people might prefer to get the building over and done with in a short space of time. I suppose it depends on how it is done.
Neither objection seems particularly salient when set against the fact that people want more homes and aren't getting them.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
Having promised a referendum in the manifesto - it would have been a bit odd for Cam + Osborne to then say we will hold it after Labour switches leader!
Unless you think Osborne should have predicted Corbyn would win the Labour leadership?
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Scenic as Lake Tahoe is, I'm not sure it compares to..... Venice.
Overcrowded, dirty, smelly you mean? You're probably right
Continuing my occasional rant about the ONS and their statistics on construction I seriously have to wonder if those concerned ever look out their window. Whilst down at the Oval I was staying at the Westminster Plaza, just on the south side of Westminster Bridge, an hotel with just over 1,000 bedrooms and, so far as I could see, no British born staff.
The scale of development going on on the south bank at the moment is just jaw dropping and gargantuan. Huge buildings going up everywhere, mainly for residential use. You can also see the apparently never ending expansion of the Docklands/Canary Warf development and of course Crossrail. London is very obviously enjoying a construction boom. Anecdotally, a friend of my daughter's, who works as a high crane operator, moans that his inbox is constantly full of text messages offering him new jobs.
Seriously, their figures on construction make their estimates on immigration look good. It's just ridiculous.
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
I don't really understand what you mean about sustainable development. If your village had been built in 5 years - then there might be less likelihood of gluts or dearths, because the building would be much more concentrated.
As to the impact on the local community - some people might prefer to get the building over and done with in a short space of time. I suppose it depends on how it is done.
Neither objection seems particularly salient when set against the fact that people want more homes and aren't getting them.
I'm seeing it from the builders' point of view. The impact on the community is not that big, because the development is built in sections: it is not as if they build houses over the area at random. As long as the shared infrastructure is built for the final number, it should be okay.
And you get far more gluts and dearths if you concentrate; at least if you are a big company with many developments on the go.
One thing that could be done to encourage housebuilding is to remove the need to clear off the top few (six?) feet of earth on brownfield sites, or remove the landfill levy for that soil. Needless to say, the government has reduced the funding for clearance of brownfield sites ...
I don't really understand what you mean about sustainable development. If your village had been built in 5 years - then there might be less likelihood of gluts or dearths, because the building would be much more concentrated.
As to the impact on the local community - some people might prefer to get the building over and done with in a short space of time. I suppose it depends on how it is done.
Neither objection seems particularly salient when set against the fact that people want more homes and aren't getting them.
I'm seeing it from the builders' point of view. The impact on the community is not that big, because the development is built in sections: it is not as if they build houses over the area at random. As long as the shared infrastructure is built for the final number, it should be okay.
And you get far more gluts and dearths if you concentrate; at least if you are a big company with many developments on the go.
One thing that could be done to encourage housebuilding is to remove the need to clear off the top few (six?) feet of earth on brownfield sites, or remove the landfill levy for that soil. Needless to say, the government has reduced the funding for clearance of brownfield sites ...
The problem with long term, large scale developments is that it ties up the housing allocation in the local development plan to the benefit of that builder. They won't lose their planning consent as long as the site is in development, no matter how long it is taking, and that can shut other potential developers out.
The result all too frequently has been that the housing allocation within the local plan does not get built in the timescale contemplated creating a local shortage which in turn allows prices for the development to drift in an upwards direction to the benefit of the house builder but no one else.
It's worth noting that Amber Rudd is at least as popular with Remainer Conservatives (a dwindling band, of course) as Philip Hammond. That is not received wisdom.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
Continuing on the housebuilding/land hoarding theme from yesterday:
"Lately the government has become keener on large-scale housing developments. They tend to be farther from NIMBY-ish residents, and local authorities find it easier to manage one big project than lots of small ones. But they can give large builders local monopolies. To maximise profits on a plot, the builder may ration supply, putting up houses gradually rather than completing them all at once.
There is circumstantial evidence of this process at work. One study in 2014 looked at sites in London where more than 500 homes were earmarked and found that it was rare to build more than 100 of them a year. Research by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP), a consultancy, suggests that as the size of a plot goes up, the annual rate of building gets relatively smaller."
The question I would ask is - if rationing supply of housing/building slower increases profits - aren't companies acting in the best interest of their shareholders to do this?
It's not so much increasing profits as smoothing profits.
Otherwise you'd have lots of costs as you build and then a big lump of revenues. This way matches things better and reduces risk and volatility
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
What they really need is to adopt test match cricket. 5 day matches and their holiday entitlements will soon come into line.
I'm running out family friendly words to describe my loathing for Theresa May.
The Conservatives would have won a 42-seat majority in June’s general election if they had secured the same level of support among minority ethnic Britons as they did among white voters, analysis has found.
The report, by the British Future thinktank, identifies what it calls an “ethnic minority voting gap” that cost Theresa May 600,000 votes and an extra 28 seats.
It argues that while David Cameron sought to emphasise a broadening of the Conservative appeal to voters, including the party’s historically poor support from black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons, May had reversed this process.
The authors also reveal that May rarely visited party workers, fearing that Conservative HQ was “a pit of germs”. “There were quite a lot of germs flying around,” one Conservative source said.
I think we can safely set contempt levels to maximum for that little gem.
She's a fucking [moderated] who deserves to [censored] and exiled to France for her treachery to the party and country.
She's a total and utter [deleted] she should [redacted] off.
If May is a traitor to her party and country what does that make Osborne?
Osborne helped take the Tory party from 198 MPs to 331 MPs.
He's a patriot.
When ranking his achievements, Osborne can take much, much more credit for the UK moving from inside the EU to outside the EU. The way his Project Fear campaign blew up in his face still makes me wonder if he was a Leave sleeper agent, proving even more effective than Boris in getting that Leave vote over the line.
Anybody who could read the political mood so badly deserves to be banished to the political wilderness of the London Evening Standard. If only he had been reading pb.com, he would have known how badly it was playing.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
It really wasn't full of Leavers when the campaign started. And I'm not sure that Leavers outnumber Remainers here today.
It's worth noting that Amber Rudd is at least as popular with Remainer Conservatives (a dwindling band, of course) as Philip Hammond. That is not received wisdom.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
It's worth noting that Amber Rudd is at least as popular with Remainer Conservatives (a dwindling band, of course) as Philip Hammond. That is not received wisdom.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
Is it dwindling? A minority, sure.
Some of the remainers are sorting out the issue in other ways....
Europe has a whole set of marvellous second tier cities that are largely undiscovered because either they aren't close enough to an airport for a weekend break or because they don't have quite enough to do to justify a weekend there.
Also, no European country yet seems anywhere near geared up enough for the wave of Chinese tourists that is only just starting to break.
It's worth noting that Amber Rudd is at least as popular with Remainer Conservatives (a dwindling band, of course) as Philip Hammond. That is not received wisdom.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
Is it dwindling? A minority, sure.
Some of the remainers are sorting out the issue in other ways....
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
Is it really many more than the UK?
They have a lot of Thursday holidays and people take bridge weekends
MLK, Presidents, Memorial, Veterens, July 4, Thanksgiving off the top of my head
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
Is it really many more than the UK?
They have a lot of Thursday holidays and people take bridge weekends
MLK, Presidents, Memorial, Veterens, July 4, Thanksgiving off the top of my head
Only Thanksgiving is on a Thursday. The others are on Monday, apart from Veteran's day and Independence day that float. I do find the idea of having a Wed off a bit stupid though.
I don't really understand what you mean about sustainable development. If your village had been built in 5 years - then there might be less likelihood of gluts or dearths, because the building would be much more concentrated.
As to the impact on the local community - some people might prefer to get the building over and done with in a short space of time. I suppose it depends on how it is done.
Neither objection seems particularly salient when set against the fact that people want more homes and aren't getting them.
I'm seeing it from the builders' point of view. The impact on the community is not that big, because the development is built in sections: it is not as if they build houses over the area at random. As long as the shared infrastructure is built for the final number, it should be okay.
And you get far more gluts and dearths if you concentrate; at least if you are a big company with many developments on the go.
One thing that could be done to encourage housebuilding is to remove the need to clear off the top few (six?) feet of earth on brownfield sites, or remove the landfill levy for that soil. Needless to say, the government has reduced the funding for clearance of brownfield sites ...
The problem with long term, large scale developments is that it ties up the housing allocation in the local development plan to the benefit of that builder. They won't lose their planning consent as long as the site is in development, no matter how long it is taking, and that can shut other potential developers out.
The result all too frequently has been that the housing allocation within the local plan does not get built in the timescale contemplated creating a local shortage which in turn allows prices for the development to drift in an upwards direction to the benefit of the house builder but no one else.
That's a good point, but it does not mean that they can be built more quickly.
As a matter of interest, what is the underlying profitability of the major housebuilders on their housing projects (i.e. by splitting out their other activities) ? Much of this argument appears to be that the housebuilders are profiteering.
(My biggest criticism of them is that they often build poor quality homes, rather than too few homes.)
It's worth noting that Amber Rudd is at least as popular with Remainer Conservatives (a dwindling band, of course) as Philip Hammond. That is not received wisdom.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
Is it dwindling? A minority, sure.
42% of Conservatives voted Remain in the referendum:
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
Is it really many more than the UK?
They have a lot of Thursday holidays and people take bridge weekends
MLK, Presidents, Memorial, Veterens, July 4, Thanksgiving off the top of my head
And many are too frightened to take their holidays. I have known americans fired for taking holidays due to them and new mothers having to use their two weeks holiday for maternity and then return to work. For a lot of americans there is next to no employment protection.
The problem with long term, large scale developments is that it ties up the housing allocation in the local development plan to the benefit of that builder. They won't lose their planning consent as long as the site is in development, no matter how long it is taking, and that can shut other potential developers out.
The result all too frequently has been that the housing allocation within the local plan does not get built in the timescale contemplated creating a local shortage which in turn allows prices for the development to drift in an upwards direction to the benefit of the house builder but no one else.
That's a good point, but it does not mean that they can be built more quickly.
As a matter of interest, what is the underlying profitability of the major housebuilders on their housing projects (i.e. by splitting out their other activities) ? Much of this argument appears to be that the housebuilders are profiteering.
(My biggest criticism of them is that they often build poor quality homes, rather than too few homes.)
IANAE but I have come across several examples of option agreements by which developers promised landowners returns on houses that mean that the developments are no longer viable. They were signed pre 2007 and assumed a remarkably linear growth in house prices. This is certainly inhibiting a number of potential developments in Scotland as they wait for the options to expire.
It's worth noting that Amber Rudd is at least as popular with Remainer Conservatives (a dwindling band, of course) as Philip Hammond. That is not received wisdom.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
Is it dwindling? A minority, sure.
42% of Conservatives voted Remain in the referendum:
You omit the greatest disadvantages of all. Socal is just.... a bit boring. It's oddly banal. You get the odd amazing bbq where you meet super smart Ukrainian Olympic discus throwers turned Silicon valley trillionaires, or Honduran gymnasts turned Beverley Hills mistresses, but generally it's a bit dull. Everyone over 25 goes to sleep at 9pm.
Even worse, it's too far from anywhere interesting. Yes, California has nice national parks, but that's it. Fly for three hours, you're still in America, or Canada, or Mexico (so pretty much the same)
Fly for three hours from London (max), and you can be in Barcelona, Venice, the Alps, the Nordic fjords, Hungary, Paris, Trieste, the Black Forest, Iceland, Connemara, Seville, the Camargue, the Algarve, Vienna, the Hebridean islands, Sicily, Krakow, the Italian lakes, Morocco, Florence, and Berlin.
Big Bear Lake Tahoe Yellowstone Jackson Hole Teleride Grand Canyon
Etc
Fantastic national parks, stunning wilderness all within driving distance. But with ten days holiday a year, often including sick leave - unless you are self employed - you don't get to go...
People forget how many long weekends the Americans have
Is it really many more than the UK?
They have a lot of Thursday holidays and people take bridge weekends
MLK, Presidents, Memorial, Veterens, July 4, Thanksgiving off the top of my head
And many are too frightened to take their holidays. I have known americans fired for taking holidays due to them and new mothers having to use their two weeks holiday for maternity and then return to work. For a lot of americans there is next to no employment protection.
And yet some are forced into unions. It's a weird old place.
They have a lot of Thursday holidays and people take bridge weekends
MLK, Presidents, Memorial, Veterens, July 4, Thanksgiving off the top of my head
And many are too frightened to take their holidays. I have known americans fired for taking holidays due to them and new mothers having to use their two weeks holiday for maternity and then return to work. For a lot of americans there is next to no employment protection.
And yet some are forced into unions. It's a weird old place.
Yes indeed. Let us hope that Brexit does not make the UK more USA-like with regard to employment legislation.
For any early birds, Elon Musk is going to give a presentation in fifty minutes about his new plans for Mars. Two images he's released early show ships on Mars and the Moon.
It can be watched here: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5V7R_se1Xc
Edit: it is also likely to start late.
The world is a better place with people like Elon Musk around. Great vision, will be fascinating to watch. Oh, and love that it’s still called the BFR!
Choosing the leading Leaver would change the dynamic completely. With some clever marketing by Labour the Tories would become de facto the new UKIP. That is to say it will be seen as a single issue party. At least as far to the right as Labour are seen as being on the left.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
Wrong on both counts
Not only did the country vote Leave but Boris is the choice of the public to succeed May in every poll and perhaps the only Tory at the moment who can beat Corbyn
I'm running out family friendly words to describe my loathing for Theresa May.
The Conservatives would have won a 42-seat majority in June’s general election if they had secured the same level of support among minority ethnic Britons as they did among white voters, analysis has found.
The report, by the British Future thinktank, identifies what it calls an “ethnic minority voting gap” that cost Theresa May 600,000 votes and an extra 28 seats.
It argues that while David Cameron sought to emphasise a broadening of the Conservative appeal to voters, including the party’s historically poor support from black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons, May had reversed this process.
The authors also reveal that May rarely visited party workers, fearing that Conservative HQ was “a pit of germs”. “There were quite a lot of germs flying around,” one Conservative source said.
I think we can safely set contempt levels to maximum for that little gem.
She's a fucking [moderated] who deserves to [censored] and exiled to France for her treachery to the party and country.
She's a total and utter [deleted] she should [redacted] off.
If May is a traitor to her party and country what does that make Osborne?
Osborne helped take the Tory party from 198 MPs to 331 MPs.
He's a patriot.
When ranking his achievements, Osborne can take much, much more credit for the UK moving from inside the EU to outside the EU. The way his Project Fear campaign blew up in his face still makes me wonder if he was a Leave sleeper agent, proving as playing.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
No it isn't, or do you just ignore the posts from Meeks, Glenn and TSE and Southam Observer etc
If anything anti EU voters are underrepresented on PB compared to the UK as a whole. Indeed the last poll in 2015 on which way PBers voted had fewer PBers than the UK average voting UKIP but more PBers than the national average voting for the pro EU LDs
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
This is the only realistic possibility although winning a Scottish seat might be difficult in the teeth of the Brexit Backlash. Even for Kim Jong Ruth.
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
This is the only realistic possibility although winning a Scottish seat might be difficult in the teeth of the Brexit Backlash. Even for Kim Jong Ruth.
The Tories gained 12 Scottish seats after Brexit
Yes but if things go tits up will they hold them all? Clearly Scottish politics is volatile given the massive swings over the past few years.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
I think that is incorrect.
Many on pb.com wanted to say inside a reformed EU. I remember cyclefree writing a characteristically impressive header on exactly this point.
One thing that has surprised me is how much the Remainers blame the UK. I would have said the EU is at least partly to blame for the rupture.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
I think that is incorrect.
Many on pb.com wanted to say inside a reformed EU. I remember cyclefree writing a characteristically impressive header on exactly this point.
One thing that has surprised me is how much the Remainers blame the UK. I would have said the EU is at least partly to blame for the rupture.
Internal EU reform is needed. That may well be Brexit's legacy.
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
This is the only realistic possibility although winning a Scottish seat might be difficult in the teeth of the Brexit Backlash. Even for Kim Jong Ruth.
The Tories gained 12 Scottish seats after Brexit
Yes but if things go tits up will they hold them all? Clearly Scottish politics is volatile given the massive swings over the past few years.
They are mainly rural so probably and Labour may well gain further SNP seats
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
I think that is incorrect.
Many on pb.com wanted to say inside a reformed EU. I remember cyclefree writing a characteristically impressive header on exactly this point.
One thing that has surprised me is how much the Remainers blame the UK. I would have said the EU is at least partly to blame for the rupture.
Internal EU reform is needed. That may well be Brexit's legacy.
The question is why the EU had to wait till after the secession of one of its largest members before carrying out reforms.
That is not the comforting sign of a well-run organisation.
Hmm. I see Bethesda's Creation Club is going down about as well as the Conservative 2017 manifesto. It turns out people don't like being asked to pay for things for which free (often superior) alternatives are available, or when such things were provided free for other games.
There is a depressing shift in the games industry, which is seeing more money (by significant degrees) raised from DLC than in the recent past. On the plus side, kickstarters and the like have helped provide a Renaissance to isometric RPGs and may open up new avenues for games like Kingdom Come Deliverance (a realistic game out next year, RPG set in 1403 Bohemia).
The DLC approach is not too dissimilar to the budget airline approach of charging for everything not absolutely integral to the experience. When people pay $60/£40 for a game, it's understandable that they're less than thrilled.
And this might seem irrelevant to the wider world, but the desire to shift to subscriptions, to change items from being products to services, is not confined to the games industry. The turbulence in publishing still hasn't reached an equilibrium, and rumblings emerge every so often about publishers or retailers trying to promote subscriptions (a model of which I wholly disapprove. As a writer, I want to be paid if my book sells, as a reader, I want to own the books I buy permanently not have them only available for a limited time or if I'm a subscriber).
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
I think that is incorrect.
Many on pb.com wanted to say inside a reformed EU. I remember cyclefree writing a characteristically impressive header on exactly this point.
One thing that has surprised me is how much the Remainers blame the UK. I would have said the EU is at least partly to blame for the rupture.
One thing is for certain the reason we are leaving is because of the Conservative Party .
Continuing my occasional rant about the ONS and their statistics on construction I seriously have to wonder if those concerned ever look out their window. Whilst down at the Oval I was staying at the Westminster Plaza, just on the south side of Westminster Bridge, an hotel with just over 1,000 bedrooms and, so far as I could see, no British born staff.
The scale of development going on on the south bank at the moment is just jaw dropping and gargantuan. Huge buildings going up everywhere, mainly for residential use. You can also see the apparently never ending expansion of the Docklands/Canary Warf development and of course Crossrail. London is very obviously enjoying a construction boom. Anecdotally, a friend of my daughter's, who works as a high crane operator, moans that his inbox is constantly full of text messages offering him new jobs.
Seriously, their figures on construction make their estimates on immigration look good. It's just ridiculous.
Construction is a very visible and subjective industry - if you see lots of new building taking place you think the construction industry is doing well, if you don't you don't.
Now to me there certainly looks like there's a lot of construction work taking place along the M18 and nearby areas. But I had assumed other areas, in particular London, must have less for the official data to be so poor.
Not really, PB is mostly full of Leavers anyway. Osborne’s mistake was to call the referendum while Corbyn (a known eurosceptic) was the Labour leader.
I think that is incorrect.
Many on pb.com wanted to say inside a reformed EU. I remember cyclefree writing a characteristically impressive header on exactly this point.
One thing that has surprised me is how much the Remainers blame the UK. I would have said the EU is at least partly to blame for the rupture.
One thing is for certain the reason we are leaving is because of the Conservative Party .
Not at all. Look at Wales. Every Labour seat outside Cardiff voted LEAVE.
The seats that voted REMAIN were the Tory seats (Vale of Glamorgan, Monmouthshire), the then LibDem seat (Ceredigion) and the Plaid seats in NW Wales.
The problem with long term, large scale developments is that it ties up the housing allocation in the local development plan to the benefit of that builder. They won't lose their planning consent as long as the site is in development, no matter how long it is taking, and that can shut other potential developers out.
The result all too frequently has been that the housing allocation within the local plan does not get built in the timescale contemplated creating a local shortage which in turn allows prices for the development to drift in an upwards direction to the benefit of the house builder but no one else.
That's a good point, but it does not mean that they can be built more quickly.
As a matter of interest, what is the underlying profitability of the major housebuilders on their housing projects (i.e. by splitting out their other activities) ? Much of this argument appears to be that the housebuilders are profiteering.
(My biggest criticism of them is that they often build poor quality homes, rather than too few homes.)
IANAE but I have come across several examples of option agreements by which developers promised landowners returns on houses that mean that the developments are no longer viable. They were signed pre 2007 and assumed a remarkably linear growth in house prices. This is certainly inhibiting a number of potential developments in Scotland as they wait for the options to expire.
I'm surprised by that.
But land prices are a massive factor. According to Farmers Weekly (1), famrland for building is selling at £1 million per acre. The government sets a minimum number of houses per acre for new developments; I'm unsure what it is atm, but if we assume 15 (which I think would be dense), then the land cos per residential unit would be ~£66k. That's a significant proportion of the cost of a new house.
Continuing my occasional rant about the ONS and their statistics on construction I seriously have to wonder if those concerned ever look out their window. Whilst down at the Oval I was staying at the Westminster Plaza, just on the south side of Westminster Bridge, an hotel with just over 1,000 bedrooms and, so far as I could see, no British born staff.
The scale of development going on on the south bank at the moment is just jaw dropping and gargantuan. Huge buildings going up everywhere, mainly for residential use. You can also see the apparently never ending expansion of the Docklands/Canary Warf development and of course Crossrail. London is very obviously enjoying a construction boom. Anecdotally, a friend of my daughter's, who works as a high crane operator, moans that his inbox is constantly full of text messages offering him new jobs.
Seriously, their figures on construction make their estimates on immigration look good. It's just ridiculous.
@DavidL - what makes you think the ONS estimates on migration are wrong? In what direction do you think they are wrong?
The 2011 Census estimate was just 100,000 lower than the 2011 mid-year estimate. I think being out by 100,000 over ten years is not too bad. Of course, things may have changed since then...
Comments
@HYUFD said
Yes, even if Corbyn does win next time I expect the Tories in opposition will have far more opportunity to make headway than they did from 1997 to 2001
@dixiedean said:
Very true. This outbreak of agreement needs to be stopped though. I long for the saltiness of yesterday when TSE was wanting to fight Ben Stokes!
And you think an old fashioned socialist will win? Haha.
Very true. This outbreak of agreement needs to be stopped though. I long for the saltiness of yesterday when TSE was wanting to fight Ben Stokes!
I think I will head to bed while there is some consensus
The big question for Boris rampers is this ? Will Tory MPs remove the fire wall between the Tory brand and the Leave campaign completely by electing Boris ?
I still think the betting value is on the most militant Leaver we've never heard of vs ex Remain, Big Beast for the next contest with the militant Leaver we've never heard of winning.
Good night.
For any early birds, Elon Musk is going to give a presentation in fifty minutes about his new plans for Mars. Two images he's released early show ships on Mars and the Moon.
It can be watched here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5V7R_se1Xc
Edit: it is also likely to start late.
But I think the country is more left wing, or more receptive to left wing ideas than it has been for a long time.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/28/jeremy-corbyn-policies-yougov-centre-ground-labour
1. http://www.sancarlocicchetti.co.uk/ - excellent food, plates for sharing, good atmosphere. In Covent Garden.
2. The Hawksmoor - a variety of locations. Good food but very focused on meat.
Now shoot me down...........
Anybody who could read the political mood so badly deserves to be banished to the political wilderness of the London Evening Standard. If only he had been reading pb.com, he would have known how badly it was playing.
http://www.libertylawsite.org/2017/09/12/seek-ye-first-the-political-kingdom/
Crazy, or time to to sell Boeing and Airbus stocks?
(That might well be an and/or)
With an election camapign that starts planning years ahead, a manifesto tested to destruction with focus groups (rather than a thought exercise in "how many of our core can we piss off?", written down the pub on the back of a fag packet) and an approach of "you know exactly what you get with Theresa" contrasting with Labour's bat-shit crazy time machine to the Seventies - they might just be right.
It also assumes Brexit has happened and hasn't been The Full Venkman: human sacrifice, dogs and cats and living togther... mass hysteria!
San Carlo have been in Leicester for 20 years, and are one of my favourites. Ranieri treated the Leicester City team there the day that they won the Premier League.
The saltimbocca is my favourite.
In my opinion choosing Boris is the only chance of Labour forming the next majority government while Corbyn is their leader..
She will be fragged by her own side first though.
Well her track record is one of losing ground to Jeremy Corbyn, making him look like a winner and making it certain that he will lead Labour into the next election. So, her track record is one of making it more likely that Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister. The rest? Well, they haven't had their chance - yet.
"Lately the government has become keener on large-scale housing developments. They tend to be farther from NIMBY-ish residents, and local authorities find it easier to manage one big project than lots of small ones. But they can give large builders local monopolies. To maximise profits on a plot, the builder may ration supply, putting up houses gradually rather than completing them all at once.
There is circumstantial evidence of this process at work. One study in 2014 looked at sites in London where more than 500 homes were earmarked and found that it was rare to build more than 100 of them a year. Research by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP), a consultancy, suggests that as the size of a plot goes up, the annual rate of building gets relatively smaller."
https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21710853-companies-are-accused-driving-up-house-prices-land-banking-are-british-housebuilders
The question I would ask is - if rationing supply of housing/building slower increases profits - aren't companies acting in the best interest of their shareholders to do this?
He had difficulty choosing sides in the referendum, but saw Leave (which would lose) as a better route to becoming PM. His aim now is to be the Leave candidate in a possible leadership election. The Tory membership given the choice of a Leave candidate or a Remainer will opt for the Leaver - mission accomplished Boris is PM.
The interesting question is what will he do then?
Implementation is a different matter, as is consistency and tough decisions.
Find her a safe seat somehow before the next GE?
Lead the party from outside the Commons (is that even possible these days)?
Let TM lead the Tories into the next GE, get Ruth to stand in a Scottish constituency and then challenge if the election result is poor?
In reality we have no idea if she can actually run anything yet, which seems a bit of a pre-requisite to me, but she is a formidable campaigner.
Take my village as an example: about 4,250 homes and 12,000 people. Work started in 1998, and the entire complex will probably be completed next year. (*) The development was so big that it was split up between three separate developers, a decision that has led to some advantages when it comes to housing styles.
So that makes about 200 houses a year over twenty years.
Would our increasingly ill-named 'village' be as pleasant if it had been built in ten years? Five? I doubt it.
(*) I fully expect the Cambourne West development to start next year, meaning that the remaining developers will be able to move people and kit over.
F1: mildly amused Alonso (one of the few midfield/backmarker team drivers I didn't back) was third in first practice. Can't recall the odds, probably 51 or 101 (fifth that for top three).
I think P2 is from 8am. Pre-qualifying will be up later today.
On-topic: this is unsurprising, but the PCP shouldn't assume May will step down. She's proven to be poor at discerning what people want, and varies between indecisive and reckless.
If your village had been built in 5 years - then there might be less likelihood of gluts or dearths, because the building would be much more concentrated.
As to the impact on the local community - some people might prefer to get the building over and done with in a short space of time. I suppose it depends on how it is done.
Neither objection seems particularly salient when set against the fact that people want more homes and aren't getting them.
Unless you think Osborne should have predicted Corbyn would win the Labour leadership?
The scale of development going on on the south bank at the moment is just jaw dropping and gargantuan. Huge buildings going up everywhere, mainly for residential use. You can also see the apparently never ending expansion of the Docklands/Canary Warf development and of course Crossrail. London is very obviously enjoying a construction boom. Anecdotally, a friend of my daughter's, who works as a high crane operator, moans that his inbox is constantly full of text messages offering him new jobs.
Seriously, their figures on construction make their estimates on immigration look good. It's just ridiculous.
And you get far more gluts and dearths if you concentrate; at least if you are a big company with many developments on the go.
One thing that could be done to encourage housebuilding is to remove the need to clear off the top few (six?) feet of earth on brownfield sites, or remove the landfill levy for that soil. Needless to say, the government has reduced the funding for clearance of brownfield sites ...
https://britainelects.com/2017/09/27/previews-28-sep-2017/
The result all too frequently has been that the housing allocation within the local plan does not get built in the timescale contemplated creating a local shortage which in turn allows prices for the development to drift in an upwards direction to the benefit of the house builder but no one else.
There's an element of sexism about how one of the most senior Conservatives is consistently overlooked by the commentariat. I'm keeping her firmly onside in my betting.
Otherwise you'd have lots of costs as you build and then a big lump of revenues. This way matches things better and reduces risk and volatility
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41430927
Also, no European country yet seems anywhere near geared up enough for the wave of Chinese tourists that is only just starting to break.
MLK, Presidents, Memorial, Veterens, July 4, Thanksgiving off the top of my head
As a matter of interest, what is the underlying profitability of the major housebuilders on their housing projects (i.e. by splitting out their other activities) ? Much of this argument appears to be that the housebuilders are profiteering.
(My biggest criticism of them is that they often build poor quality homes, rather than too few homes.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-result-7-graphs-that-explain-how-brexit-won-eu-explained-a7101676.html
In the most recent YouGov, under a quarter of Conservative supporters voted Remain in the referendum:
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/xdlp14v0de/TimesResults_170922_VI_Trackers_W.pdf
So yes, dwindling.
Not only did the country vote Leave but Boris is the choice of the public to succeed May in every poll and perhaps the only Tory at the moment who can beat Corbyn
If anything anti EU voters are underrepresented on PB compared to the UK as a whole. Indeed the last poll in 2015 on which way PBers voted had fewer PBers than the UK average voting UKIP but more PBers than the national average voting for the pro EU LDs
Many on pb.com wanted to say inside a reformed EU. I remember cyclefree writing a characteristically impressive header on exactly this point.
One thing that has surprised me is how much the Remainers blame the UK. I would have said the EU is at least partly to blame for the rupture.
That is not the comforting sign of a well-run organisation.
There is a depressing shift in the games industry, which is seeing more money (by significant degrees) raised from DLC than in the recent past. On the plus side, kickstarters and the like have helped provide a Renaissance to isometric RPGs and may open up new avenues for games like Kingdom Come Deliverance (a realistic game out next year, RPG set in 1403 Bohemia).
The DLC approach is not too dissimilar to the budget airline approach of charging for everything not absolutely integral to the experience. When people pay $60/£40 for a game, it's understandable that they're less than thrilled.
And this might seem irrelevant to the wider world, but the desire to shift to subscriptions, to change items from being products to services, is not confined to the games industry. The turbulence in publishing still hasn't reached an equilibrium, and rumblings emerge every so often about publishers or retailers trying to promote subscriptions (a model of which I wholly disapprove. As a writer, I want to be paid if my book sells, as a reader, I want to own the books I buy permanently not have them only available for a limited time or if I'm a subscriber).
Now to me there certainly looks like there's a lot of construction work taking place along the M18 and nearby areas. But I had assumed other areas, in particular London, must have less for the official data to be so poor.
The seats that voted REMAIN were the Tory seats (Vale of Glamorgan, Monmouthshire), the then LibDem seat (Ceredigion) and the Plaid seats in NW Wales.
But land prices are a massive factor. According to Farmers Weekly (1), famrland for building is selling at £1 million per acre. The government sets a minimum number of houses per acre for new developments; I'm unsure what it is atm, but if we assume 15 (which I think would be dense), then the land cos per residential unit would be ~£66k. That's a significant proportion of the cost of a new house.
(1): http://www.fwi.co.uk/business/farmland-hits-1m-acre-for-housing.htm
The 2011 Census estimate was just 100,000 lower than the 2011 mid-year estimate. I think being out by 100,000 over ten years is not too bad. Of course, things may have changed since then...