Stop voting for fucking Tories

[tabascoboy]

One thing I notice flying around is that London has very few high-rises. Fly into cities in Europe and you see high-rises - London very few.

Sunak wants to build up. It's the only way.

They've long had a bad reputation though for signifying bad neighbourhood high crime areas - even where it's patently not the case, plus the Grenfell Tower disaster doesn't help give a positive image. We seem to have gotten past the notion that they are "socialist" though...

[Torquemada 1420]

There was a phased reduction of tax relief for mortgage interest rates, which is why it only fully came in long after Osborne was gone.

Your first list looks about right, the only one you're missing is moving mortgages to a fixed interest rate. My view is the big weakness is to increasing interest rates (was obvious when Sunak started getting the money printing machine going, inflation was coming, which would mean higher interest rates), those most impacted by that will be landlords that haven't moved the properties into a ltd company (94% of landlords own them personally, 1% have some but not all in a company, 5% entirely in a company) and anyone on a variable not fixed mortgage. In a worst case the landlords that have <5 properties and aren't professional landlords (there's no huge money pot anywhere), get swamped by the rising interest rate and go bankrupt and because there's no ltd company separating their personal finances from the properties they lose everything.

Agree that there's PRS consolidation. But that's how the UK economy works isn't it? Consolidate, squeeze the little guys out, the consolidated big dogs extract rent. Retail is the classic example (you would know more than me, but French retail seems entirely different and more regulated). Did the ones you know who sold up sell their entire portfolio to a bigger player?

On supply and demand. Those who can't afford it but are in the market, still set the floor price, if the demand remains the same it never goes below the maximum they can afford. It's shit for society if people are basically only starting out in life in their 30s, but does it really matter for supply and demand what age the demand is? The question is only "demand, yes or no?"? London or anywhere commutable to London, has insane demand from locals/people within the UK moving there/immigrants. Anecdotal, but rent seems to be moving up much faster than inflation. I can only see it being fixed by a large increase in supply.

Yup: 25% pa on a 4 year transition.

You are correct in para 2. The cost of moving to incorporated would be too high
- SDLT
- CGT
- and refinancing because no lender would permit a residential BTL mortgage to become a business loan

The consolidation is certainly classic Tories. As you say, kill the small guy to the benefit of the rich. The ones who sold did so by auctions so no idea where they went but most likely bigger players.

Crudely, excluding BTL, property is a conveyor. 1st time buyer buys ---> 2nd time buyer moves up one --> etc whilst old people die and their homes fall back into circulation. In a static population with no external factors (e.g. BTL), house prices should only stay in line with inflation. Or, the consequences are obvious. And that's exactly how things were until cheap credit + reckless lending arrived.

(from another doc I wrote)

If you push out the age of 1st time buyers, you simply slow or stall the market. In theory, you'd cross the point where the death rate exceeded the 1st time buyer rate**.

Of course, the population has grown but not by a higher rate than housing supply to conclude a demand > supply position that explains the price rises. I hear all the stuff about "higher divorce rates means a rise in demand from before" but that doesn't wash with me because if a couple splits whilst in a 4 bed "exec" home, then its affordability halves.......... ergo they cannot be doubling the demand for 4 bed execs!

This can be seem more markedly in France where the "cheap debt escalator model to inflate house prices and prop up the economy" came late to the party

but the population is much more stagnant. In France, under 60s are net buyers and over 60s net sellers. If the population ages, you'd get to the point in ** above (but before death) and that is a real worry in France.

Rents exceeding inflation and wage inflation are explained already in my previous chart? 1st time buyers can't afford to buy, so they have to rent --> from BTL landlords who are hoovering up houses --> forcing house prices up --> making fewer proportionally available to wannabe buyers (exasperated by building of wrong properties) --> increases the demand for rented --> rents rise --> preventing renters ever saving enough for a deposit --> so they have to stay in rent --> go back to sq1

PS I am not saying that over supply of houses would not cause a correction. What I'm saying is a better way to fix it (or not start it at all) is to curtail easy, cheap credit to BTL speculators. Make them sink proper capital into busiinesses like the rest of us.

[Torquemada 1420]

One thing I notice flying around is that London has very few high-rises. Fly into cities in Europe and you see high-rises - London very few.

Sunak wants to build up. It's the only way.

Not at all true. The difference is in London, most high rise developments are aimed at the wealthy (take a look all along the Thames) whereas in other cities, (Paris say), most new high rises are for the low income end of the market.
Take a boat trip along the Thames at night and see how many lights are on in those new builds................ it's because swathes are sold to overseas "investors" who never occupy them.

1) One leading agent (I will spare names but one of the biggest UK intermediaries) told me some years back that they don't even bother marketing many of these blocks at all in the UK. They simply f**k off to Shanghai (Riyadh, St Petersburg or whatever) and sell them off plan to overseas buyers who will never even come and see them. Nor will they bother to rent them out. It's simply either money laundering or getting money out of their own countries to a safe haven.

2) Friends of mine owned a 2 bed penthouse flat just outside Covent Garden tube. They paid £1.2m and sold not many years later for £2m. Anyway, once when I visited, I needed to drive (because I was going on from London) and so they offered to let me park in the underground parking. When I finally found the entrance and drove in............ there were 2 other cars there and 1 was that of my friends'. They explained nearly all the flats were empty with a few occasionally used by foreigners a few weeks a year.

[Slick]

One thing I notice flying around is that London has very few high-rises. Fly into cities in Europe and you see high-rises - London very few.

Sunak wants to build up. It's the only way.

Not at all true. The difference is in London, most high rise developments are aimed at the wealthy (take a look all along the Thames) whereas in other cities, (Paris say), most new high rises are for the low income end of the market.
Take a boat trip along the Thames at night and see how many lights are on in those new builds................ it's because swathes are sold to overseas "investors" who never occupy them.

1) One leading agent (I will spare names but one of the biggest UK intermediaries) told me some years back that they don't even bother marketing many of these blocks at all in the UK. They simply f**k off to Shanghai (Riyadh, St Petersburg or whatever) and sell them off plan to overseas buyers who will never even come and see them. Nor will they bother to rent them out. It's simply either money laundering or getting money out of their own countries to a safe haven.

2) Friends of mine owned a 2 bed penthouse flat just outside Covent Garden tube. They paid £1.2m and sold not many years later for £2m. Anyway, once when I visited, I needed to drive (because I was going on from London) and so they offered to let me park in the underground parking. When I finally found the entrance and drove in............ there were 2 other cars there and 1 was that of my friends'. They explained nearly all the flats were empty with a few occasionally used by foreigners a few weeks a year.

Yup, all of this

[Mahoney]

Does the Mayor of London have the power to have a punitive annual tax on unoccupied properties? I'd have thought it would be a very popular policy.

[Paddington Bear]

There was a phased reduction of tax relief for mortgage interest rates, which is why it only fully came in long after Osborne was gone.

Your first list looks about right, the only one you're missing is moving mortgages to a fixed interest rate. My view is the big weakness is to increasing interest rates (was obvious when Sunak started getting the money printing machine going, inflation was coming, which would mean higher interest rates), those most impacted by that will be landlords that haven't moved the properties into a ltd company (94% of landlords own them personally, 1% have some but not all in a company, 5% entirely in a company) and anyone on a variable not fixed mortgage. In a worst case the landlords that have <5 properties and aren't professional landlords (there's no huge money pot anywhere), get swamped by the rising interest rate and go bankrupt and because there's no ltd company separating their personal finances from the properties they lose everything.

Agree that there's PRS consolidation. But that's how the UK economy works isn't it? Consolidate, squeeze the little guys out, the consolidated big dogs extract rent. Retail is the classic example (you would know more than me, but French retail seems entirely different and more regulated). Did the ones you know who sold up sell their entire portfolio to a bigger player?

On supply and demand. Those who can't afford it but are in the market, still set the floor price, if the demand remains the same it never goes below the maximum they can afford. It's shit for society if people are basically only starting out in life in their 30s, but does it really matter for supply and demand what age the demand is? The question is only "demand, yes or no?"? London or anywhere commutable to London, has insane demand from locals/people within the UK moving there/immigrants. Anecdotal, but rent seems to be moving up much faster than inflation. I can only see it being fixed by a large increase in supply.

Bear in mind the housing supply round London looks better than it is because a lot of professionals seem comfortable living in uni style house shares. Which is not good news for society in a number of ways.
London should have probably about 20% more housing than it does.

One thing I notice flying around is that London has very few high-rises. Fly into cities in Europe and you see high-rises - London very few.

Sunak wants to build up. It's the only way.

100%. It doesn't all have to be skyscrapers either - London's best architecture is the 4-6 floor old townhouses and yet so much of London is semi-detached sprawl, it would practically solve the issue as well as making parts of town look less like a dump.

[Paddington Bear]

One thing I notice flying around is that London has very few high-rises. Fly into cities in Europe and you see high-rises - London very few.

Sunak wants to build up. It's the only way.

Not at all true. The difference is in London, most high rise developments are aimed at the wealthy (take a look all along the Thames) whereas in other cities, (Paris say), most new high rises are for the low income end of the market.
Take a boat trip along the Thames at night and see how many lights are on in those new builds................ it's because swathes are sold to overseas "investors" who never occupy them.

1) One leading agent (I will spare names but one of the biggest UK intermediaries) told me some years back that they don't even bother marketing many of these blocks at all in the UK. They simply f**k off to Shanghai (Riyadh, St Petersburg or whatever) and sell them off plan to overseas buyers who will never even come and see them. Nor will they bother to rent them out. It's simply either money laundering or getting money out of their own countries to a safe haven.

2) Friends of mine owned a 2 bed penthouse flat just outside Covent Garden tube. They paid £1.2m and sold not many years later for £2m. Anyway, once when I visited, I needed to drive (because I was going on from London) and so they offered to let me park in the underground parking. When I finally found the entrance and drove in............ there were 2 other cars there and 1 was that of my friends'. They explained nearly all the flats were empty with a few occasionally used by foreigners a few weeks a year.

Whilst this is true, somewhere like Harrow is just row after row of shit small houses, despite having excellent transport links into central. There's capacity to sell 'luxury' in central and take what is basically free foreign currency, as well as accommodating London's population.

[tabascoboy]

Virtually all the apartment blocks ( low rise) in my commuter belt town are either retirement flats or highish value ones which seem to be aimed at people moving out of London

[Torquemada 1420]

Does the Mayor of London have the power to have a punitive annual tax on unoccupied properties? I'd have thought it would be a very popular policy.

Not with his cronies!

[Torquemada 1420]

100%. It doesn't all have to be skyscrapers either - London's best architecture is the 4-6 floor old townhouses and yet so much of London is semi-detached sprawl, it would practically solve the issue as well as making parts of town look less like a dump.

Or maybe try something really radical: like create jobs somewhere else than London?

Just a thought.

[Paddington Bear]

100%. It doesn't all have to be skyscrapers either - London's best architecture is the 4-6 floor old townhouses and yet so much of London is semi-detached sprawl, it would practically solve the issue as well as making parts of town look less like a dump.

Or maybe try something really radical: like create jobs somewhere else than London?

Just a thought.

How? We’ve been trying for generations. London is where the demand for housing is and we should meet it. It has the demand, the jobs and the infrastructure, not to mention it is already a massive city so building is hardly crushing green and pleasant land

[Torquemada 1420]

100%. It doesn't all have to be skyscrapers either - London's best architecture is the 4-6 floor old townhouses and yet so much of London is semi-detached sprawl, it would practically solve the issue as well as making parts of town look less like a dump.

Or maybe try something really radical: like create jobs somewhere else than London?

Just a thought.

How? We’ve been trying for generations. London is where the demand for housing is and we should meet it. It has the demand, the jobs and the infrastructure, not to mention it is already a massive city so building is hardly crushing green and pleasant land

FM.

1) By trying, you mean wiping out the industrial North and skewing all Govt expenditure towards the South (esp the M25 circle and M4 corridor)?
2) Errrr, yes. Demand for housing usually follows jobs. Generally because one has to pay to either rent or buy.
3) The infrastructure is sh*t. Public transport is an unreliable, expensive disgrace. The roads have a worse surface than most small asteroids and are more clogged in peak times than Elvis's arteries.
4) You might want to get out more and see exactly what is happening to "green and pleasant land" anywhere within commuter reach of London.

[Paddington Bear]

Or maybe try something really radical: like create jobs somewhere else than London?

Just a thought.

How? We’ve been trying for generations. London is where the demand for housing is and we should meet it. It has the demand, the jobs and the infrastructure, not to mention it is already a massive city so building is hardly crushing green and pleasant land

FM.

1) By trying, you mean wiping out the industrial North and skewing all Govt expenditure towards the South (esp the M25 circle and M4 corridor)?
2) Errrr, yes. Demand for housing usually follows jobs. Generally because one has to pay to either rent or buy.
3) The infrastructure is sh*t. Public transport is an unreliable, expensive disgrace. The roads have a worse surface than most small asteroids and are more clogged in peak times than Elvis's arteries.
4) You might want to get out more and see exactly what is happening to "green and pleasant land" anywhere within commuter reach of London.

On point 4 if you can’t see the link between that and London being underdeveloped there’s no helping you.
London’s infrastructure is good! It isn’t an East Asian city but it compares favourably in reliability and spread with any major western city.

[Margin__Walker]

All aboard. It's happening.

[Torquemada 1420]

On point 4 if you can’t see the link between that and London being underdeveloped there’s no helping you.
London’s infrastructure is good! It isn’t an East Asian city but it compares favourably in reliability and spread with any major western city.

It's terrible (we are talking public transport), cw Paris say, Paris is far more comprehensive, more reliable and much cheaper. And I accept that London's size means it's never going to get to the "you are never more than 500m from a Metro station"..... but that's part of the point i.e. London is now so big (and slow) it takes longer to commute a few miles across London than to go 50 miles North by road our here.

You are missing the point entirely but that's hardly surprising for a London-ite whose typical view of the world extends as far as Reading. Not everyone want to live in London. Anyway, you accidentally undermined your argument by highlighting how East Asian cities (because they are new) are so much better. The fact that old Western cities do not lend themselves well to increasing populations............. is exactly why they shouldn't.

[Paddington Bear]

On point 4 if you can’t see the link between that and London being underdeveloped there’s no helping you.
London’s infrastructure is good! It isn’t an East Asian city but it compares favourably in reliability and spread with any major western city.

It's terrible (we are talking public transport), cw Paris say, Paris is far more comprehensive, more reliable and much cheaper. And I accept that London's size means it's never going to get to the "you are never more than 500m from a Metro station"..... but that's part of the point i.e. London is now so big (and slow) it takes longer to commute a few miles across London than to go 50 miles North by road our here.

You are missing the point entirely but that's hardly surprising for a London-ite whose typical view of the world extends as far as Reading. Not everyone want to live in London. Anyway, you accidentally undermined your argument by highlighting how East Asian cities (because they are new) are so much better. The fact that old Western cities do not lend themselves well to increasing populations............. is exactly why they shouldn't.

Think your assertions are bizarre on a number of levels.
1) I live in zone 7 and so outside the ability to vote on TfL matters, and yet I am able to live without owning a car thanks to the comprehensive nature of London’s transport network. From my suburban station I have 6 trains an hour in each direction with a fastest time to a terminal of under 25 minutes. To get into the city is one train and less than an hour, south to say Clapham takes just over an hour and Gatwick one change and an hour and a half. All quicker than driving and pretty punctual. Hell, I write this now from the met line on the way home from a client site that involved four changes, all met on time for the fourth day running. I’ve lived in London proper and it is absolutely a city where a car is completely unnecessary.
Paris’ network is comparable and whilst cheaper has similar reliability issues and is certainly dirtier and less safe.

2) really unsure what your point is? London needs more housing because London has more demand for jobs and whilst not everyone wants to live there clearly a substantiL chunk of the country does! In an ideal world Brum and MCR compete directly, but the chances of London’s great employers moving out in the near future are zero. In the meantime we have a housing crisis both genuine (homelessness, poor quality etc) and relative (30ish professionals should not live in student style digs) that has profound social and economic effects.
London outside of the centre is ugly suburban sprawl and could be easily made more dense at very little hassle for anyone. That would mean, almost overnight, the demand to concrete over, say, Didcot or the Vale of Aylesbury craters. It isn’t hard

[tabascoboy]

All aboard. It's happening.

On the plus side, I don't feel like she's one of more unpleasant personalities ( not that she has a noticeable one) in the leading Tories, on the minus side she really is a bit of a muppet.

I wonder what the Tea Sock will think of this...

[SaintK]

All aboard. It's happening.

On the plus side, I don't feel like she's one of more unpleasant personalities ( not that she has a noticeable one) in the leading Tories, on the minus side she really is a bit of a muppet.

I wonder what the Tea Sock will think of this...

She hasn't got one. A block of wood is more animated and interesting than her

[Torquemada 1420]

Think your assertions are bizarre on a number of levels.
1) I live in zone 7 and so outside the ability to vote on TfL matters, and yet I am able to live without owning a car thanks to the comprehensive nature of London’s transport network. From my suburban station I have 6 trains an hour in each direction with a fastest time to a terminal of under 25 minutes. To get into the city is one train and less than an hour, south to say Clapham takes just over an hour and Gatwick one change and an hour and a half. All quicker than driving and pretty punctual. Hell, I write this now from the met line on the way home from a client site that involved four changes, all met on time for the fourth day running. I’ve lived in London proper and it is absolutely a city where a car is completely unnecessary.
Paris’ network is comparable and whilst cheaper has similar reliability issues and is certainly dirtier and less safe.

2) really unsure what your point is? London needs more housing because London has more demand for jobs and whilst not everyone wants to live there clearly a substantiL chunk of the country does! In an ideal world Brum and MCR compete directly, but the chances of London’s great employers moving out in the near future are zero. In the meantime we have a housing crisis both genuine (homelessness, poor quality etc) and relative (30ish professionals should not live in student style digs) that has profound social and economic effects.
London outside of the centre is ugly suburban sprawl and could be easily made more dense at very little hassle for anyone. That would mean, almost overnight, the demand to concrete over, say, Didcot or the Vale of Aylesbury craters. It isn’t hard

Pretty much every time I travel to London (which is obviously not as much as you but is 3-4x per month), some part of the journey is broken or delayed.

My point is you are looking at this in reverse. The reason the jobs are in London......... is because all the spending is in London/SE.

Maybe this will help:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/d ... index.html

and ignore the stuff on productivity because UK productivity, across the board, is abysmal cw with say, USA or France.

[Torquemada 1420]

All aboard. It's happening.

On the plus side, I don't feel like she's one of more unpleasant personalities ( not that she has a noticeable one) in the leading Tories, on the minus side she really is a bit of a muppet.

I wonder what the Tea Sock will think of this...

She hasn't got one. A block of wood is more animated and interesting than her

And floats around between shores much like one too.

[Paddington Bear]

Think your assertions are bizarre on a number of levels.
1) I live in zone 7 and so outside the ability to vote on TfL matters, and yet I am able to live without owning a car thanks to the comprehensive nature of London’s transport network. From my suburban station I have 6 trains an hour in each direction with a fastest time to a terminal of under 25 minutes. To get into the city is one train and less than an hour, south to say Clapham takes just over an hour and Gatwick one change and an hour and a half. All quicker than driving and pretty punctual. Hell, I write this now from the met line on the way home from a client site that involved four changes, all met on time for the fourth day running. I’ve lived in London proper and it is absolutely a city where a car is completely unnecessary.
Paris’ network is comparable and whilst cheaper has similar reliability issues and is certainly dirtier and less safe.

2) really unsure what your point is? London needs more housing because London has more demand for jobs and whilst not everyone wants to live there clearly a substantiL chunk of the country does! In an ideal world Brum and MCR compete directly, but the chances of London’s great employers moving out in the near future are zero. In the meantime we have a housing crisis both genuine (homelessness, poor quality etc) and relative (30ish professionals should not live in student style digs) that has profound social and economic effects.
London outside of the centre is ugly suburban sprawl and could be easily made more dense at very little hassle for anyone. That would mean, almost overnight, the demand to concrete over, say, Didcot or the Vale of Aylesbury craters. It isn’t hard

Pretty much every time I travel to London (which is obviously not as much as you but is 3-4x per month), some part of the journey is broken or delayed.

My point is you are looking at this in reverse. The reason the jobs are in London......... is because all the spending is in London/SE.

Maybe this will help:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/d ... index.html

and ignore the stuff on productivity because UK productivity, across the board, is abysmal cw with say, USA or France.

If you think I’m saying we shouldn’t invest more in the north you’d be very mistaken.
The north needs massive spending on infrastructure, no doubt about it. The south doesn’t, it needs housing because just about everyone under a certain age lives in housing that is less adequate than their situation would suggest. This impacts productivity as it means a disproportionate amount of national income is given up to rent seekers and ceases to be a productive part of the economy. I.e the £250 extra I have available to me having stopped paying London rents goes into a FTSE tracker instead. Critique my investing as you will but this is a net £250 positive for UK plc every month. You get the idea.

Basically in 30 years you may be right, if there is 30 years of sustained investment up north. There won’t be of course and it does nothing to solve the issues London faces *right now*.
London’s issue also doesn’t require massive government spending, it requires changes in planning regs. London is an exceptionally attractive prospect for construction and property investment, if you give firms the confidence that should they buy up a run down street of post war semis they can convert it into mixed use townhouses they will as they will make money off it.

I’m not saying London’s infrastructure is world beating or perfect but it is absolutely possible to live a car free life in London, which is untrue in the rest of the country. This is about as much as you can ask IMHO.

[GogLais]

Something that struck me - members of the Conservative Party are effectively going to elect our next PM with I’m assuming zero oversight from outside the party. Or is there? Seems a bit worrying in an era of outside interference in elections. Same applies to Labour of course.

[Margin__Walker]

Something that struck me - members of the Conservative Party are effectively going to elect our next PM with I’m assuming zero oversight from outside the party. Or is there? Seems a bit worrying in an era of outside interference in elections. Same applies to Labour of course.

That's the system we have tbf.

There wasn't even a leadership contest when Brown became Labour leader and PM.

[GogLais]

Something that struck me - members of the Conservative Party are effectively going to elect our next PM with I’m assuming zero oversight from outside the party. Or is there? Seems a bit worrying in an era of outside interference in elections. Same applies to Labour of course.

That's the system we have tbf.

There wasn't even a leadership contest when Brown became Labour leader and PM.

The point I’m trying to make is that the Conservatives are effectively having a private election to elect a public official. It’s only a hypothetical problem. Or maybe they bring in a neutral observer to make sure that everything is legit,

Or to put it another way - if there were malpractice, either internal or external, are we reasonably sure that it would be exposed?

[salanya]

Something that struck me - members of the Conservative Party are effectively going to elect our next PM with I’m assuming zero oversight from outside the party. Or is there? Seems a bit worrying in an era of outside interference in elections. Same applies to Labour of course.

That's the system we have tbf.

There wasn't even a leadership contest when Brown became Labour leader and PM.

The point I’m trying to make is that the Conservatives are effectively having a private election to elect a public official. It’s only a hypothetical problem. Or maybe they bring in a neutral observer to make sure that everything is legit,

Or to put it another way - if there were malpractice, either internal or external, are we reasonably sure that it would be exposed?

Boris has been PM for nearly 3 years.

I hope that answers your question.

[GogLais]

That's the system we have tbf.

There wasn't even a leadership contest when Brown became Labour leader and PM.

The point I’m trying to make is that the Conservatives are effectively having a private election to elect a public official. It’s only a hypothetical problem. Or maybe they bring in a neutral observer to make sure that everything is legit,

Or to put it another way - if there were malpractice, either internal or external, are we reasonably sure that it would be exposed?

Boris has been PM for nearly 3 years.

I hope that answers your question.

Ha!

[I like neeps]

How strange, after Kwasi got his knickers in a twist when P&O did this what 3 months ago.

[fishfoodie]

How strange, after Kwasi got his knickers in a twist when P&O did this what 3 months ago.

You can always rely on the Tories to find the weakest, & poorest in society, & make their lives even more miserable !

The only group that can be replaced like this, are unskilled workers, i.e. the ones who already are the worst paid, & already have the worst work conditions, & job security.

Starmer needs to be unequivocal, & state that Labour will immediately reverse this cruel legislation, & will make improving the job/wage security of the lowest paid a priority. It's an easy way to shutdown the whispering campaign that he isn't a proper socialist.

[Biffer]

100%. It doesn't all have to be skyscrapers either - London's best architecture is the 4-6 floor old townhouses and yet so much of London is semi-detached sprawl, it would practically solve the issue as well as making parts of town look less like a dump.

Or maybe try something really radical: like create jobs somewhere else than London?

Just a thought.

How? We’ve been trying for generations. London is where the demand for housing is and we should meet it. It has the demand, the jobs and the infrastructure, not to mention it is already a massive city so building is hardly crushing green and pleasant land

The UK has NOT been trying to create jobs in the north and midlands in any serious way. Successive govts have done enough so they can point and say ‘look, we tried’. But the actual investment in infrastructure etc has never happened. Have a look at what Germany did to ‘level up’ the east after reunification, that shows the investment required. And it’s working.

https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/wh ... elling-up/

Two trillion euros and 25 years. That’s what it took, and it’s not finished yet.

[Insane_Homer]

[tabascoboy]

Will the committee have the balls to ban him from Parliament? If so he'd be forced to stand down as an MP

[Tichtheid]

[I like neeps]

Oh wow, one of them finally said it.

[Hal Jordan]

I see we're following the US by removing references to sexual and reproductive rights and bodily autonomy from an agreed intergovernmental human rights agreement.

23 countries were signing it, now only 1 will, Malta, who have a ban on all abortions.

Classic stuff from the money that brought you MAGA and the current GOP. Distract with culture wars and Zaphod Beeblebrox style leaders, do the really troubling stuff very, very quietly whilst no one is looking.

[tabascoboy]

What a well thought-out policy this has turned out to be, rushed through to please the "send 'em straight back" angry brigade

Rwanda can hold just 200 Channel migrants - and can't stop them returning to Britain

Officials say they only have one hostel with 'a couple of hundred' spaces that is 'ready' to receive asylum seekers from the UK

Rwanda only has the capacity to accommodate 200 Channel migrants, say its Government officials - as they also admitted they were powerless to stop them from leaving to return to the UK.

Yolande Makolo, a spokesman for the Rwandan Government, said the country only had one hostel with 200 spaces that was “ready” to receive migrants from the UK.

Other facilities were “in the planning stage” but with no contracts agreed, she told a press briefing on Friday, despite previous claims by Boris Johnson and other ministers that thousands of asylum seekers would be processed in the country.

Officials also said Rwanda was not a “prison state” and that there was nothing they could do to stop migrants leaving and attempting new journeys back to the UK.

However, attacking claims by charities and even UK officials that Rwanda was a “hell hole, poor and full of disease,” Ms Makolo said it had transformed since the genocide 30 years ago into a vibrant economy with job opportunities as well as a fair and humane society based on non-discrimination.

She said the “innovative” partnership with the UK was designed to reverse the global migration from Africa by making the country a “welcoming place especially for young Africans so they don’t have to leave and make dangerous journeys [across the Channel or Mediterranean].”

Her comments come as the plan to deport migrants to Rwanda to claim asylum has stalled until at least September when the high court will determine if it is legal following challenges by charities and the Border Force union that it is unlawful and a breach of human rights.

Ms Makolo said she was “confident” the first migrants would fly to Rwanda within days of the high court ruling, irrespective of who was the new Tory leader. Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have committed to continuing with the plan if it is ruled legal.

However, in an acknowledgment that the numbers could be low, she disclosed: “The only facility that is committed right now and standing ready to receive migrants is Hope hostel [in Kigali].”

She said this could take “a couple of hundred” migrants. “We have identified other potential accommodation centres. We haven’t gone into any contracts with them yet. We are waiting to see what the numbers will be like,” she added.

She maintained the Rwandan Government would be able to “scale up quickly” and would be ready to “take as many as the UK is willing to send.”

The UK has paid £120 million up front for the scheme, with some of the money already spent on preparing for the arrival of migrants. It is anticipated the Government will pay a further £12,000 per migrant for hostel rent (£60 a day), resettlement, training and language costs.

Doris Uwicyeza Picard, chief adviser to the country’s justice ministry, admitted that Rwandan authorities will not be able to stop migrants leaving the country and attempting new journeys back to the UK.

She said Rwanda was “not a prison state”. “Everybody who wishes to leave can leave. We also have mechanisms in place to ensure safe relocation to their country of origin or any other country where they would have a right to residence,” she added.

Rwanda will not be facilitating journeys back to the UK, and will only offer those to other nations where migrants have the right to enter or reside.

Ms Makolo said Rwanda had provided the UK with documentation to challenge claims by the former UK high commissioner that refugees were forced to serve in the Rwanda army, and that “Africa is a hell hole.”

She was confident that once up and running, the scheme would act as a deterrent to stop migrants from risking their lives by crossing the Channel to reach the UK.

Paywalled item: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... returning/

[sturginho]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 28946.html

[JM2K6]

[Hal Jordan]

I think those wishing the Tories gone at the next election, and thinking fuckwit Truss or bankers' catamite Sunak will hand it to Labour on a plate are in serious danger of falling into Kinnock's 1992 confidence, or the Trump parallel.

[Paddington Bear]

She makes a genuine effort to talk like Thatcher, doesn't she? Accent much more cut glass than it is for just about anyone of her age and the cadence is very familiar.

[I like neeps]

"the Americans are lapping up Love Island and Downton Abbey so there's huge appetite to do a deal with Britain" gets me everytime. It has to be the stupidest thing anyone has ever said.