The Politics Thread

[Worthy4England]

So at a time when people can hardly afford to live, building 300'000 new houses a year is a government priority. Who is going to afford to buy them all? You don't have to look very far really to see what's wrong with this country. Neverland doesn't just exist in fairy tales. I've had my innings, but I dread what will happen to my grandkids and great grandkids. God help them...

But we need new houses. We’ve needed them for over a decade. More houses available reduces the cost for buyers…

Houses cost so much because supply is low and demand is high.

There were 24m households in the last census and 24.8m on the housing stock volume. The problem is not going to be solved just by "building lots more houses" - the problem is some of them are in places people don't want them, plenty of cases where people might want one, but it's in a place they can't afford and 9m owned by people to rent them out, which they view as an "asset".

You have bought the story from the Tory's favourite donors, that we need "shitload more houses"...We don't.

I don’t know of anyone who seriously argues we don’t have a housing supply issue.

The disagreements are around the sort of housing stock we build, where and when.

Not that there isn’t a massive shortage. And I fully agree that you don’t have a physical shortage by number however millions of those are owned by landlords and I don’t think any political party will suggest forces repossession. Also millions of those are soon to be condemned terraces in and around cities that simply aren’t sustainable going forward.

We do have a shortage. We do need to build more houses. The Tories will not build the affordable housing we require. They will pay lip service to it but I’ve talked to enough developers trying to build affordable and social housing to know the incentives are in the wrong place.

A housing supply issue - yes. We have many. The answer is not to concrete over the green belt. Nor can the answer be "just build and build" until everyone who might want to own their own home has one. The notion that we just "destroy the rented sector" by making it non-economic, will just leave lots of properties empty. It not even approaching a "cunning plan"

GMCA's "Palaces for Everyone" plan, is a complete and utter farce, they're just working out how much greenbelt they can give Peel, to ensure "Port Salford" gets built. It's bent. Their answer is to build more than we need (by their own maths) in places where we don't need them...

Was it Thomas Carlyle who said "teach a parrott the words supply and demand and you have an economist?"

[Worthy4England]

I don't see how a 97% occupancy rate is not a massive f*cking shortage.

There were around 2000 properties on the market, in just 2 London boroughs last month....You just need half a million quid to buy them...

[BWFC_Insane]

So at a time when people can hardly afford to live, building 300'000 new houses a year is a government priority. Who is going to afford to buy them all? You don't have to look very far really to see what's wrong with this country. Neverland doesn't just exist in fairy tales. I've had my innings, but I dread what will happen to my grandkids and great grandkids. God help them...

But we need new houses. We’ve needed them for over a decade. More houses available reduces the cost for buyers…

Houses cost so much because supply is low and demand is high.

There were 24m households in the last census and 24.8m on the housing stock volume. The problem is not going to be solved just by "building lots more houses" - the problem is some of them are in places people don't want them, plenty of cases where people might want one, but it's in a place they can't afford and 9m owned by people to rent them out, which they view as an "asset".

You have bought the story from the Tory's favourite donors, that we need "shitload more houses"...We don't.

I don’t know of anyone who seriously argues we don’t have a housing supply issue.

The disagreements are around the sort of housing stock we build, where and when.

Not that there isn’t a massive shortage. And I fully agree that you don’t have a physical shortage by number however millions of those are owned by landlords and I don’t think any political party will suggest forces repossession. Also millions of those are soon to be condemned terraces in and around cities that simply aren’t sustainable going forward.

We do have a shortage. We do need to build more houses. The Tories will not build the affordable housing we require. They will pay lip service to it but I’ve talked to enough developers trying to build affordable and social housing to know the incentives are in the wrong place.

A housing supply issue - yes. We have many. The answer is not to concrete over the green belt. Nor can the answer be "just build and build" until everyone who might want to own their own home has one. The notion that we just "destroy the rented sector" by making it non-economic, will just leave lots of properties empty. It not even approaching a "cunning plan"

GMCA's "Palaces for Everyone" plan, is a complete and utter farce, they're just working out how much greenbelt they can give Peel, to ensure "Port Salford" gets built. It's bent. Their answer is to build more than we need (by their own maths) in places where we don't need them...

Was it Thomas Carlyle who said "teach a parrott the words supply and demand and you have an economist?"

I agree with you on much but I’m not convinced what you are arguing the solution is here? We have a huge supply issue….meaning costs of getting a house are rising and rising. Even against financial meltdowns. So what do you do? Lessen demand? How? I guess huge inflation and more foreign property moguls might do that but to what end?

I don’t think it’s viable to move away from house ownership as a primary vehicle, although obviously it would be a nice solution but we just don’t have the same sort of structures and lifestyles as they do in countries where that happens and there is no real physical or tangible way to do that in the next generation or two…

So what are you proposing? Renovating more inner city properties? I could go with that however, again I’ve spoken to developers who do that and the barriers are huge costs and often the projects are only viable when they become commercial properties. Hence the numbers of schemes that start as renovating or converting property but end up as commercial hotels, restaurants etc….

The only answer as I see it is to build more. Where, when and how I think we can debate. But I’m not convinced there is another viable alternative.

[Worthy4England]

OK. Where to start

Building. We're talking about building houses, which require materials, land etc. build costs are typically in the range £950-£1050 (local to me in Manchester, excluding the land which will probably double it) and the sell price is around £2,400 - £2,800 per sq meter. So a flat at 65 sq m is going to set you back around £182 grand, a terrace @ £222k. If I flood the market with lots £182k flats, who's it helping get on the property ladder? Those figures are from a plot in the Calais of the North - Wiggin.

The not thinking it's viable to move away from house ownership as a primary vehicle (to something ) We're already there - there are something like 9m? properties for rent in the housing stock. The whole conversation around "affordable housing" is a con. They don't mean "affordable for someone on the average wage to buy" so there's lots of categories in "affordable housing" - things like affordable rent, co ownership, etc. etc. When the weasels are getting out of their commitment to provide even these through S106, they plead poverty and don't deliver them. Some analysis suggested they actually deliver closer to 1-2% on a plot that someone on an average wage could actually afford.

So I'm not actually convinced we can build stock that people can afford, with our current approach to building. Even if we wanted to. I think LA's probably need to get building again, on a not-for-profit basis. To actually develop those sites that cause Persimmon a headache with their £3bn in Revenue providing enough returns for investors.

We obviously have a large problem in the South East. It's pretty full. But until they start to develop an economic plan that distributes "all the good jobs" more evenly across the country, they won't solve that problem, of Dick Whittington moving to where the streets are paved with gold.

There is a problem with which I agree with the Brexiteers (oh woe is me) - we can't just keep growing as a population ad infinitum. That makes no sense either and continues to surpress salaries, which in turn, continues to mean folks can't afford even the cheapest...

[BWFC_Insane]

^ As usual lots to agree with there. And entirely agree that the debate needs to be about what you build, how and who builds it.

And whilst I take your point about the numbers in rent the point is that in the U.K. people don’t anticipate staying in the rental market long term in many cases. It’s seen as transient. Hence the high rent, short termist approach to the market. You could reform it to be more like a number of European countries where many people accept they stay in the rental market a long time and then you need much longer term more affordable rents but the bottom line is such a change would take generations. And is as impractical as expecting the major developers to subsidise affordable housing.

There are developers who could work with LA’s to form public private partnerships that I think could really work. I’ve heard some talk about this possibility. I think that’s the sort of thing I mean. And those partnerships could build and also look and renovating existing properties and locations where it makes sense.

As for population growth it’s much more complex than that. If we stop growing our population then we are completely fecked given the ageing nature of our population. The best thing would be compulsory euthanasia at 80 but of course..no…I’m joking but the reality of a population that is ageing is bad news. So we need more people to service it. But have limited space. However, as you say what it takes is redistribution of people and wealth across the country to better utilise the space we have. And some balancing. We need to make sure our services can be provided. What we don’t really need is more foreign investors rocking up buying up huge swathes of land and property and then charging huge rents and or flipping for huge profit. We do need more doctors, nurses, social care workers, policemen etc…

[TANGODANCER]

There is a problem with which I agree with the Brexiteers (oh woe is me) - we can't just keep growing as a population ad infinitum. That makes no sense either and continues to surpress salaries, which in turn, continues to mean folks can't afford even the cheapest...

Exactly. It's that one thing more than any other that prevents any hope of the pie being big enough to feed the party. A combination of the twin evils of Covid and Genghis Khan the 249th have much to answer for in making the cost of living public enemy number one here and five loaves and two fishes was always an eastern problem, but our own problems concern the sceptred isle and are a total terrifying reality.

It's the biggest belief, since Sir Walter Raleigh sailed out in search of El Dorado, that The U.K is the western version of the promised land. What a myth.
That obviously is how every person/family of every beleaguered immigrant, single, family, young or old see us. It's why a thousand immigrants a day land on our shores having traveled (just one route) from Turkey, around Greece and trecked all the way across France to reach England. The chances of dispelling the myth are disappearing faster than members of Parliament. But lets build some houses....

[BWFC_Insane]

There is a problem with which I agree with the Brexiteers (oh woe is me) - we can't just keep growing as a population ad infinitum. That makes no sense either and continues to surpress salaries, which in turn, continues to mean folks can't afford even the cheapest...

Exactly. It's that one thing more than any other that prevents any hope of the pie being big enough to feed the party. A combination of the twin evils of Covid and Genghis Khan the 249th have much to answer for in making the cost of living public enemy number one here and five loaves and two fishes was always an eastern problem, but our own problems concern the sceptred isle and are a total terrifying reality.

It's the biggest belief, since Sir Walter Raleigh sailed out in search of El Dorado, that The U.K is the western version of the promised land. What a myth.
That obviously is how every person/family of every beleaguered immigrant, single, family, young or old see us. It's why a thousand immigrants a day land on our shores having traveled (just one route) from Turkey, around Greece and trecked all the way across France to reach England. The chances of dispelling the myth are disappearing faster than members of Parliament. But lets build some houses....

We have very low levels of unemployment but huge shortages of workers in loads of industries. Shortages of doctors, nurses, care workers, transport, logistics, retail…all short of workers…

Where do you think they are coming from if not immigration? Considering that we don’t have loads of people out of work…nor do we have a ready supply of trained nurses, doctors, care staff etc…

The fundamental problem since Brexit is we’ve lost a huge chunk of our essential workforce and we have a population that is only getting on average older. Meaning more old people not working. Needing care. Needing health care. And needing working people paying tax to keep the country afloat and their pensions protected. Where are those people coming from to grow the economy to do that?

Future generations already will have to work longer and longer because of this. The fact is that if you argue the problem is immigration you are being utterly misled by the same people who lied to you in the first place to put us in this mess.

The problem is we have an ever ageing population a growing out of work due to age population that are demanding their pension is locked with inflation and their care and services untouched. And because their vote is so precious they are protected. Yet everything else isn’t.

And ultimately if you want those things then you need a workforce to deliver it and our workforce since Brexit has been decimated….and ultimately this has all happened because liars convinced enough people to blame the wrong things for the problems we have.

I’m not sure how much clearer anyone would need it to be. The numbers and data are all their to show exactly what has happened. Even deluded Truss was secretly trying to increase immigration as it’s the only way we can plug the gaps.

[TANGODANCER]

^
As for population growth it’s much more complex than that. If we stop growing our population then we are completely fecked given the ageing nature of our population. The best thing would be compulsory euthanasia at 80 but of course..no…I’m joking but

Ah, yes let's e-enact Logan's Run. That's a cunning plan.

[TANGODANCER]

We have very low levels of unemployment but huge shortages of workers in loads of industries. Shortages of doctors, nurses, care workers, transport, logistics, retail…all short of workers…

Where do you think they are coming from if not immigration? Considering that we don’t have loads of people out of work…nor do we have a ready supply of trained nurses, doctors, care staff etc…

Maybe if the cost of living didn't mean earning a fortune just to make it worthwhile to work, those shortages might not be so evident. Did you not notice the word "Strike" doing the rounds lately by the currently employed police, post office workers, NHS, teachers, railway workers H.G.V drivers etc.etc. etc. .

[Worthy4England]

So this is nearer the sort of thinking (outside of flood the market and build everywhere), that I was thinking of.

Dunno about you, I didn't ever think I had the "right" to own a house, certainly not in my 20's. I figured I probably would one day when I could afford it, but that was in my 30's when (and if) I figured I could afford one...I sure as hell didn't think we should just allow build everywhere policies just for my convenience.

I agree we need more affordable rent properties - but here's the rider, they fall into the "affordable housing" bucket, and the number developers are obliged to build (which as previously stated they use S106 to get out of) is miniscule. They also fook about with "affordable to rent" - it's tied to 80% of the market rent, so actually nothing to do with whether it's affordable...So the people who can afford these houses are rental sector landlords, be them private, public or overseas investors and realistically, I think you'd need to take the supply side to stupid numbers, to get the outcome you think you're looking for.

I buy the "we're fooked" on population, conversation for some of its journey. But, continuing to take in, is just pushing the can down the alley and obviously there is a finite amount you can take in. I think by the time we've concreted over most of the UK, it's probably not going to be a great place to be, for anyone.

[BWFC_Insane]

We have very low levels of unemployment but huge shortages of workers in loads of industries. Shortages of doctors, nurses, care workers, transport, logistics, retail…all short of workers…

Where do you think they are coming from if not immigration? Considering that we don’t have loads of people out of work…nor do we have a ready supply of trained nurses, doctors, care staff etc…

Maybe if the cost of living didn't mean earning a fortune just to make it worthwhile to work, those shortages might not be so evident. Did you not notice the word "Stike" doing the rounds lately by the currently employed police, post office workers, NHS, teachers, railway workers H.G.V drivers etc.etc. etc. .

No I’m sorry I can’t let that answer go…there are record numbers of people in jobs…record low numbers of unemployment…and yet we have huge shortages in the workforce.

So where are the people coming from? There isn’t a supply. Not unless they come from other countries. Or we ask 6 year olds to do it.

And that’s before we get to stuff that requires specific skills, training and qualifications where we have shortages now that can’t be plugged without people holding those things that again we don’t have in sufficient numbers.

People are striking over pay but even if you pay everyone top dollar it doesn’t alter the fact…WE DONT HAVE ENOUGH WORKERS…..

You can’t invent workers. They don’t exist. We need a higher number of working age adults, especially ones that can fill gaps in specific industries.

[BWFC_Insane]

So this is nearer the sort of thinking (outside of flood the market and build everywhere), that I was thinking of.

Dunno about you, I didn't ever think I had the "right" to own a house, certainly not in my 20's. I figured I probably would one day when I could afford it, but that was in my 30's when (and if) I figured I could afford one...I sure as hell didn't think we should just allow build everywhere policies just for my convenience.

I agree we need more affordable rent properties - but here's the rider, they fall into the "affordable housing" bucket, and the number developers are obliged to build (which as previously stated they use S106 to get out of) is miniscule. They also fook about with "affordable to rent" - it's tied to 80% of the market rent, so actually nothing to do with whether it's affordable...So the people who can afford these houses are rental sector landlords, be them private, public or overseas investors and realistically, I think you'd need to take the supply side to stupid numbers, to get the outcome you think you're looking for.

I buy the "we're fooked" on population, conversation for some of its journey. But, continuing to take in, is just pushing the can down the alley and obviously there is a finite amount you can take in. I think by the time we've concreted over most of the UK, it's probably not going to be a great place to be, for anyone.

It’s almost like what we need to do is be a member of a club where you have freedom of worker movement that allows gaps to be plugged and jobs to be filled even on a seasonal basis without necessarily needing that migration to be long term and also allows movement the other way with few barriers….if only such a thing existed…..

[Worthy4England]

There is a problem with which I agree with the Brexiteers (oh woe is me) - we can't just keep growing as a population ad infinitum. That makes no sense either and continues to surpress salaries, which in turn, continues to mean folks can't afford even the cheapest...

Exactly. It's that one thing more than any other that prevents any hope of the pie being big enough to feed the party. A combination of the twin evils of Covid and Genghis Khan the 249th have much to answer for in making the cost of living public enemy number one here and five loaves and two fishes was always an eastern problem, but our own problems concern the sceptred isle and are a total terrifying reality.

It's the biggest belief, since Sir Walter Raleigh sailed out in search of El Dorado, that The U.K is the western version of the promised land. What a myth.
That obviously is how every person/family of every beleaguered immigrant, single, family, young or old see us. It's why a thousand immigrants a day land on our shores having traveled (just one route) from Turkey, around Greece and trecked all the way across France to reach England. The chances of dispelling the myth are disappearing faster than members of Parliament. But lets build some houses....

It's clearly not just a UK problem TD. There are plenty in other European countries on around the same percentage as us - You can't really get a fag paper between, us, France and Germany (for example) as Insano says, we actually need them in large sectors of the economy...

[Prufrock]

On the hotel bill for immigrants, btw, a gigantic proportion of the bill seems to be because HO ministers refused to book hotels because they wanted to incentive officials to come up with ways to stop people crossing. By magic, presumably. So we're paying top dollar for turn up on the day looking for a free room rates.

So if you were looking for what difference it might make to change the politicians, that seems a pretty concrete one. Labour know how to work booking.com.

[BWFC_Insane]

On the hotel bill for immigrants, btw, a gigantic proportion of the bill seems to be because HO ministers refused to book hotels because they wanted to incentive officials to come up with ways to stop people crossing. By magic, presumably. So we're paying top dollar for turn up on the day looking for a free room rates.

So if you were looking for what difference it might make to change the politicians, that seems a pretty concrete one. Labour know how to work booking.com.

Quite. Burn through money just to whip up more hatred. Populism lie number 375.

[TANGODANCER]

"There are several names given to a group of magpies, but perhaps the most descriptive is “a parliament.” The birds have earned this title from often appearing in large groups in the spring, looking stately and cawing at each other."

Many a true word etc....

[Bruce Rioja]

Driving home yesterday evening I listened to Suella Braverman's speech to the house on the situation in Kent, in which she used the term 'an invasion of migrants'.
I thought - within24 hours there'll be people who will focus their ire more on that one line than on the fact that the government clearly has no clear plan to stop the crossings.
And here we are.

[Harry Genshaw]

We're told the Govts whole Rwanda plan was to target the traffickers and drive them out of business. So how about opening up routes and allowing appellants the right to work, in say specific industries, pending their decision being made?

Focusing on Sue Ella's 'invasion' comment misses the absolute chutzpah of her 'which party do you trust to sort this?' comment. 12 feckin years!

[Worthy4England]

We're told the Govts whole Rwanda plan was to target the traffickers and drive them out of business. So how about opening up routes and allowing appellants the right to work, in say specific industries, pending their decision being made?

Focusing on Sue Ella's 'invasion' comment misses the absolute chutzpah of her 'which party do you trust to sort this?' comment. 12 feckin years!

We have plenty of open routes which are entirely legal and allow people to migrate into the UK. That's just called immigration. It's almost like they need this distraction of 50-60,000 arriving illegally, to cover up for the fact that they haven't actually "sorted out immigration" as a result of Brexit (which lost them the opportunity to carry on saying "It's all the EU's fault"). The blame needs to be somewhere else now, so throw the dead cat onto the table.

The highest three years on record for net migration have all been in the last 8 years.

[TANGODANCER]

On the hotel bill for immigrants, btw, a gigantic proportion of the bill seems to be because HO ministers refused to book hotels because they wanted to incentive officials to come up with ways to stop people crossing. By magic, presumably. So we're paying top dollar for turn up on the day looking for a free room rates.

So if you were looking for what difference it might make to change the politicians, that seems a pretty concrete one. Labour know how to work booking.com.

Quite. Burn through money just to whip up more hatred. Populism lie number 375.

Irrelevant now, but my mind always retains a memory of the 23 drowned Chinese illegal immigrant in the Morecambe Bay cockle-picking disaster of 2004..I pray they found their promised land in another life. Lest we forget.