Or the state could build them?
Westminster Politics 2024-2029
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
Sounds worrying tbh.
I can easily see them doing the old trick of taking on the debt without actually nationalising the company. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Also funny how they can suddenly “find the
money” for this.
Are they still going
https://news.sky.com/story/prisoner...-plans-to-tackle-prison-overcrowding-13175200
I hope they've just briefed this to the press to gauge whether or not this terrible "solution" is indeed a terrible and unpopular idea. I don't particularly care if the prisoners they are releasing aren't the rapists, murders or violent offenders. Set aside money to build more prisons immediately (I'd assume we are looking at a 2-3 year timeframe to get them finished) and in the meantime manage the situation by modifying the rooms and having more 2 person cells.
I hope they've just briefed this to the press to gauge whether or not this terrible "solution" is indeed a terrible and unpopular idea. I don't particularly care if the prisoners they are releasing aren't the rapists, murders or violent offenders. Set aside money to build more prisons immediately (I'd assume we are looking at a 2-3 year timeframe to get them finished) and in the meantime manage the situation by modifying the rooms and having more 2 person cells.
The Tories were doing this already due to their own failures. This is a continuation of the plans in train. A new prison, including the planning process, would take years. Our prisons, especially the Victorian ones, already use multiple occupancy cells. We have ignored judgments of the European Court of Humanity Rights for decades about it. I will have to do the maths again, but I'm pretty sure we have paid between €50 and €100 million in fines over the past 20 or so years over it.
Just threaten to nationalise on the cheap. That will tank the share price. Jobs a good unSounds worrying tbh.
I can easily see them doing the old trick of taking on the debt without actually nationalising the company. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Also funny how they can suddenly “find the
money” for this.
One of the biggest disappointments of the election that this Cnut didn’t lose her seat. What an absolute nasty piece of work.
I genuinely don't know if she believes this or if she is saying this to be popular or if she's an idiot being used by Tufton Street interest groups. Or a combination of the above.
Feck me, imagine they choose her as leader. Those quotes are going to haunt her and the tory party in any forthcoming election. For every 1 Reform vote it gains, they'll lose another 10 from everyone else that's not a facist nutjob.
She clearly just wants to get into bed with Farage. If she wins the leadership, it will be the end of the Tories. How thick must her constituents be to vote for her again.
You mean, the state would pay private builders the going rate, right? I'm all for replacing council house stock, but those homes would still need to be bought and paid for.
The equivalent in Ireland would be Dublin. Now remind us whereabouts in Ireland the housing market is over-priced and dysfunctional? If rent control didn’t solve any problems in Amsterdam, what makes you think it will solve things elsewhere?
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"Levelling Up" being removed from job titles because it was dumb as feck. I demanded it and the Government listened.
I Thought that was Popeye. It's funny how you get those two mixed up.
If Sue Ellen does become leader, it'll be the most ridiculous PMQs each week. Endless chat about woke/immigrant/probably something about not knowing what women are ad nauseam.
Hilariously reckon she's probably favourite too, as they'll see her as a counter to Reform UK. Idiots.
Hilariously reckon she's probably favourite too, as they'll see her as a counter to Reform UK. Idiots.
Braverman being leader will be excellent for Labour as she's a disgrace of a human being and utterly incompetent.
That's what they said about Trump. The problem is that a growing number of voters these days don't care about how incompetent or evil their leaders are.
Braverman leading the Tories would be a disaster for politics in this country because it would only continue to normalise the right's hateful politics
The UK isn't like the US and she has absolutely nothing going for her. There is genuinely no appeal to her in any format aside from stoking tensions. The left will hate her, her party will begin to hate her and the right will start to hate her too in my opinion.
Literally the entire country, I'm not from Dublin and have never lived there.
Or they could do the obvious thing and create a national work force. Removing the middle man and the profit motive in one fell swoop. The lack of imagination from centrist types is absolutely astounding.
You're so well read.
That’s definitely not true. The crisis is felt most acutely, by far, in Dublin. For the same reason it’s more acute in Amsterdam/London. The more people want to live somewhere the more expensive it is to live there. Supply and demand in action.
Anyway, the link above refers to rent control actually making problems worse in Dutch “cities” (plural) so not just Amsterdam. Add that to all the studies cited by @MikeUpNorth and we’ve zero evidence to suspect a similar approach will work anywhere else.
The only solution that everyone can agree will help is building more houses. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that any other approach will fix the issue.
Now that does actually make sense to me. Although will cost the state an absolute fortune, obviously. Has any (non communist) country anywhere tried this?
You can have some really big ideas in this space.
The purchasing power of government is gigantic. As its ability to back National training plans.
We are not trying to build soulless subdivisions with cul de sacs and idyllic 3 bedroom houses with pitched roofed garages.
Build modern template homes that are thrown up all over the country. Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, all had a look that you can see across the nation. Do that again. Same floor plans and elevations. Same materials. Same suppliers. We get this idea in our head that uniformity is abhorrent, yet 90% of the country lives in a home they could find all over the isle.
Enter deals with the private sector. Take the cost savings to them. Attach infrastructure spending to these housing projects. Attach national vocational training plans to them. Include right to buy measures for those 18-24 year olds that work on these schemes. Attach saving plans to their wages as means to wed them to their future mortgage. Not some punishing regime. Just equality from both sides.
And for gods sake, add so many more medium density. 6-9 floor buildings with spacious homes. fecking thousands of them. Apartment living is a joy if it’s not a massive tower with no life on the doorstep.
Full on, joined up thinking, with a 15 year vision. Most of the industries involved will be Tory-adjacent. You can get long term cross party approval on massive public-private investment. Yes it’s hard. But it’s not some impossible circle to square.
Thames Water has 11 months until cash runs out
Debt-laden Thames Water has said it has enough cash to fund its operations until the end of May next year but that efforts to raise new money are continuing.
The UK's largest water company, which is facing questions over whether it can survive, said its debts had risen to £15.2bn in the year to March.
Thames has also faced fierce criticism for its environmental record, and the company said the number of sewage discharges more than doubled last year.
Later this week, the water regulator Ofwat is due to publish its draft ruling on how much water companies can charge their customers for the next five years.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51ypwj0214o
My favourite line: "Thames reported an increase in annual profits to £157.3m"
Debt-laden Thames Water has said it has enough cash to fund its operations until the end of May next year but that efforts to raise new money are continuing.
The UK's largest water company, which is facing questions over whether it can survive, said its debts had risen to £15.2bn in the year to March.
Thames has also faced fierce criticism for its environmental record, and the company said the number of sewage discharges more than doubled last year.
Later this week, the water regulator Ofwat is due to publish its draft ruling on how much water companies can charge their customers for the next five years.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51ypwj0214o
My favourite line: "Thames reported an increase in annual profits to £157.3m"
2023: Approximately £45 million paid in dividends (The Independent) (Yahoo Finance) .
2022: Part of a combined total of £53.9 million over 2021 and 2022 (The Independent) .
As someone who's had the displeasure of renting for over a decade now and witness first hand the rental market losing it's fecking mins, I can tell you that whilst it's more acute in Dublin, the rental crisis is a huge problem nationwide.
The study he linked doesn't even talk about which type of rent control. Obviously some will be more suitable than others. If they are just using the blanket term "rent control', the study is meaningless.
At the very least it feels like the adults are back in the room.
It will cost the state a large amount up front but the state will then own very valuable assets which they will receive rent/fees for. Over time it will be profitable for the state as long as some gowl like Maggie doesn't come along and sell the lot.
Sticks in the craw to pay any dividends at all but those payments are obviously peanuts in the context of their overall debt. Certainly doesn’t explain how they ended up owing so much money. How the feck did they end up 15 billion quid in debt?
The housing strategy does feel like a massively missed opportunity because it's an issue that impacts cost of living through to migration concerns.
Every government leaves it to the market to resolve despite it being a proven failed approach. The issues caused by lack of housing supply will only get worse and more costly to resolve.
Just looking at population projections and the ONS has us gaining 6-7 million people by 2036. Birmingham is around a 1 million population which shows the scale of the ask. It's just not possible for the market to supply that many homes and they have little incentive to meet that kind of deadline. Mass building of social housing feels like an economic neccesity.
Every government leaves it to the market to resolve despite it being a proven failed approach. The issues caused by lack of housing supply will only get worse and more costly to resolve.
Just looking at population projections and the ONS has us gaining 6-7 million people by 2036. Birmingham is around a 1 million population which shows the scale of the ask. It's just not possible for the market to supply that many homes and they have little incentive to meet that kind of deadline. Mass building of social housing feels like an economic neccesity.
I think I am right in saying we are the only European country to privatise our water supply. The whole thing has been a failure, especially when you add up all the money taken out of the system in dividends and so on (£57bn since 1991): https://www.theguardian.com/environ...privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholders.
I suspect that true to his approach of getting all the interested parties involved, Starmer will try to persuade the market elements of the need to step up to the plate on housing issues, especially social housing. The problem he has is there is no money, neither are there lots of construction workers hanging about with nothing to do who could be directed towards building social housing.
It will need a bit of fancy footwork, a bit of government muscle and possibly a return to the format of ITB's. The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB in late 20th century) took a levy from the industry (at all levels)and if they met the plan for training, they could claim rebate. This format might need resurrecting with some obvious updates that ensure plans do turn into delivery and not simply we gave it our best attempt.
Starmer has (reputedly) said he likes solving problems, this is one that will need all his attention!
Depends if you think somebody being in prison for an extra year does anything to rehabilitate them. As with the vast majority of this stuff, it needs ripping up and a completely new approach, which is unlikely to happen under this government. Similar to the NHS or schools, it’s not just a case of build more, spend more money. Needs a much better long term strategy, rather than just focusing on reducing figures for the next election cycle.
Public essentials such as water, energy and housing should never be left in the hands of private corporations because people need them to survive. A private company making almost 2 billion a year whilst the infrastructure crumbles and the waterways are filled with human waste is despicable but entirely predictable given the ownership model.
500 feckin votes. I’d rather a Reform candidate won his constituency, it would have been a far less dangerous result.
Streeting will maybe be the worse MP of this government.