Labour's plan to build 1.5m homes – can it be delivered?

Labour hopes its grand housebuilding push will reduce prices – something sorely needed for many young people who cannot afford to buy or rent. Relative to annual earnings, housing has not been this expensive in England and Wales for well over a century. Meanwhile, planning approvals are at the lowest number since records began in 1979.

“The number of houses that are constructed is much more closely aligned with GDP than it is with the wishes of politicians to get them built,” says Peter Bill, a housing author and journalist.

“The complex and unpredictable planning system, together with the limitations of speculative private development, is responsible for the persistent under delivery of new homes,” it concluded after a one-year study into whether the big housebuilders control the market.

“The only way you’re going to get anywhere near 1.5m homes is by pouring billions of pounds into the construction of homes for poorer people,” argues Mr Bill.

For most of the 20th Century, councils played a big role in building housing, delivering up to 80% of homes in some years, but between the 1980s and 2000s social housing delivery plummeted as governments opted for privatisation.

It seems we will have to endure 5 years of id10t errors

Sir Keir Starmer told reporters last night that Labour officials going to the US to campaign are “doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there”.

Who is payimg their expenses?

Warning for "tepid" civil servants

Too many in Whitehall, he said, were "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline".
"Make no mistake, this plan will land on desks across Whitehall with the heavy thud of the gauntlet being laid down."

Time will tell.

Can't find where the main thread is for the UK Post Office financial scandal...

But has this not been a long game of politics kicking the can down through the DECADES?...


'Dozens' being investigated over Post Office Scandal
wrote:

Police investigating crimes linked to the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are looking at "dozens" of potential suspects, but don't expect trials to begin until 2027.

Police are investigating possible crimes by Post Office and Fujitsu employees and external lawyers, following the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of subpostmasters...

Will the Post Office directors and bosses all get a "Get Out of Jail" Scot free card on the lame excuses of retirement and legal time limits?...

Meanwhile, the lives of many people have been blighted and destroyed.


All in our deadly greedy world...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

The controversy over young Andy and his spy buddy leads to links with Theresa May and David Cameron.

The Duke and ‘the spy’: Espionage crisis engulfs palace.

The photo shows two middle-aged men politely smiling for the camera at a business event.

It could not, superficially, be a duller image, but it is one that has rocked Buckingham Palace.

The shot shows Prince Andrew with Yang Tengbo, who used the name Christopher Yang, a man who was, for years, a “close confidant” of the royal.

Yang has since been outed as an alleged Chinese spy who managed to infiltrate not only the royal inner sanctum, but also cosied up to former British prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron.

It’s a growing crisis and massive embarrassment that threatens to engulf the Palace and which has brought down fresh scrutiny on the duke’s mysterious finances, with spy agency MI5 now investigating links between Chinese cash and the royal’s business ventures.

Now, the heat on King Charles’ brother is being dialled up.......

It's been an "interesting" few days for those looking at the UK political scene. Rows about numbers of members parties have, or haven't; the usual bickering about the leader of <insert party name> scandal/finances...
But the top prize of incompetence must got to Hugh Stammer who is looking to the regulators of public and private services for ideas on how to stimulate growth. He's only been in office a few months and has already run out of ideas - his first few having been described by some as "inept" by some in his own party (that's a polite transliteration rather than the actual words used (never mind what the affected people and other political parties have said).

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Hmm - and some trust her??
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77r05nx11po

Expenses fiddling, CV errors - is she really a Labour MP as I thought such things only belonged on the other side of the house....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I can't understand these people who wish people to suffer until the end of their days and the silly arguments that they put forward to support their views.

MPs back assisted dying bill in historic Commons vote.

In an historic vote, MPs have approved a bill which would pave the way for huge social change by giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to end their own lives.

The Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which was backed by 314 votes to 291, will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

The bill was approved with a majority of 23 MPs, representing a drop from the first time it was debated in November, when it passed by a margin of 55.

The vote came after an emotionally-charged debate which saw MPs recount personal stories of seeing friends and relatives die......

A young cousin of mine was assisted on her way peacefully and with dignity on Thursday as she didn't want to spend the rest of her short life in pain and drugged out of her mind as terminal bowel cancer finished chewing her away.

The political scene in the UK is far from calm....
In the last few days our PM has done a U-turn and a panic stop on the same subject, namely reform of the UK benefits system; has nearly lost control of parliament with a very large number (somewhere around half of "his" MPs threatening to vote against him, reduce his Chancellor of the Exchequer to tears and a few more near misses. Needless to say the opposition parties are sitting there gently either pouring fuel on the fire or fanning the flames. And all this for a government that is barely a year old, its more the sort of behaviour I would expect from an old, exhausted one tat had been in power for twelve years not twelve months....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

A year ago the new government inherited a budget gap (deficit to you and I) of about 22 billion pounds.
In twelve months the budget gap is now more or less double that at about 42 billion pounds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn85vyd1epzo

No (polite) comments from me.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Just been reading that.
The rest of my post self censored.

Oh the irony!

The row was sparked after Ali ended her tenants' fixed-term contract in order to sell up, but then re-listed the house for rent at a higher price within six months, which is something she is currently trying to outlaw under the Renters' Rights Bill.

Minister quits
It gets worse!

Giving up her duties managing building safety and the government's response to the Grenfell Tower fire, she said she was relinquishing her building safety brief because "perception matters".

Here in the UK we have yet another minister ignoring the law:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy50446rq73o
"Normal" people would be feeling a bit like a lobster being cooked, but politicians think they are above the law.

(Previously we've had an MP claiming for the new duck house in the middle of his garden pond. This was an MP from a different party, so...)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Never liked the woman.
Loved the Panorama episode where she got owned by a member of the audience whose final words were "Get Out"
I totally agreed with him but my two words did have the word out, but with a word that begins with the letter before G. :-)

This next could be posted in the Police thread but better suited here as it referenced the UK.
5 armed coppers arrest unarmed comedian at Heathrow

Conservative Leader

Kemi Badenoch said "sending five officers to arrest a man for a tweet isn't policing, it's politics".

Reform leader

Nigel Farage gave evidence to a Congressional committee hearing on free speech in Washington DC on Wednesday, in which he raised Linehan's arrest, saying: "At what point did we become North Korea?
"I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport."

As for Father Ted's post on X, I would have added "in heels of course" :-)
Dick Emery mode on.

Ooh that hurt, but I like you"

Dick Emery mode off.

So, for a few facts in case sensationalism might get in the way:

• Our airport police are usually ALWAYS armed. It also gives them an early retirement for having to plod the terminals with a lot of extra metalwork wearing out their cartilage;
  
  
• And five officers is our very gentle British way to avoid any hope of any arguments or 'silliness' getting misconstrued.
  

Very good policing in our very British way.

Carry on now, run along with yer!


Be Excellent to All,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Why arrest him at the airport? In Germany, the man would have been sent a letter demanding questioning at the nearest police station if a prosecutor had also classified his post as offensive, inciting violence.

Drug dealers should be treated this way at airports.

Nice bullet points.
Some more for you.
Did the police know he was on the aircraft?
Did customs have his passport flagged which led to his arrest?
If so, they knew he wasn't a terrorist, so why FIVE armed officers?
Was it flagged to detain for questioning or was it because a warrant for his arrest issued?
Carry on, run along now. :-)

The accuser, a former, disgraced transgender police officer.

Former Pc Lynsay Watson, who was born Alex Horwood, was sacked by Leicestershire Police for gross misconduct in 2023 after allegedly harassing a free speech campaigner and critic of gender ideology.

If so, they knew he wasn't a terrorist, so why FIVE armed officers?

Fairly standard tactics particularly in a crowded space like an airport arrivals area with a large number of police (only 5????). Using armed police, given the vast majority of "front line" police in LHR are armed then they are the ones in place use them.

("front line" police are the first to be deployed to an active scene, second line are those acting in a passive observer role and may well be un -armed on LHR)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

She's gone. :-)