Is this one reason there is a permanent UK housing crisis...

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

why are basic needs like food

Food, in real terms, is a lot cheaper calorie for calorie, but we now tend to eat out a lot more, so household spend is similar.

[Jeremy Harris]

@Delicatedave,

 

Depends what you define as investment.  Pretty much all government revenue comes from taxation, and most of that revenue ends up being spent on stuff within the UK.  Whether government should invest in stuff or whether that investment should be left to private enterprise is a good question, though.

 

My experience of managing a fairly large government procurement, and having seen the results from quite a few other major procurements, is that, in general, the government (any government) is pretty incompetent.  Government systems mean that there is a high degree of risk averse behaviour, and this drives indecision.  Every entity that does business with government knows this, and has learned how to turn it to their advantage.  I would say that government should avoid any form of direct procurement of anything if at all possible.  The programmes I've been involved with that have allowed a main contractor to make investment decisions, with appropriate incentivisation so as to drive costs down, have, without exception, been delivered on time and under budget.  Those managed by government directly have all, without exception, come in late and over budget.

 

Having spent 35 years as a Civil Servant, the very last thing I'd ever want to see is the state running any form of industry.  The level of incompetence within government has to be seen to be believed.

 

When you say "we as a nation are not looking after our own people "  who is the "we"?  I think the biggest failing we have in modern society is that people never seem to think it is their responsibility to earn a living, save for their retirement, spend time caring for others, be unselfish etc.  It seems we have a culture of selfishness, where it's all about greed and a sense of entitlement.  We need to change things so that this crazy view that the state should somehow look after people as if they were children all their lives is knocked into touch, so that the majority who can work, do work, and contribute to the funding needed to look after those who, for whatever reason, either cannot earn a living or need care. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

17 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

I think the biggest failing we have in modern society is that people never seem to think it is their responsibility to earn a living, save for their retirement, spend time caring for others, be unselfish etc

And the government, under Cameron, response was 'The Big Lunch'.

There were more people looking at big waves in Porthleven than at the Big Lunch, says it all.

Edited February 15, 2020 by SteamyTea

[Jeremy Harris]

37 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

And the government, under Cameron, was 'The Big Lunch'.

There were more people looking at big waves in Porthleven than at the Big Lunch, says it all.

 

I've worked within several different flavours of government, and honestly could not distinguish between them in terms of party. 

 

When I started work, there was a Conservative government under Heath, that was almost unbelievable in terms of the way it tried to deal with inflation (by creating inflation). 

 

Then there was the Wilson government, the highlight of which was the massive rise in unemployment, followed by Callaghan.  The memorable feature of this time was that inflation seemed to be sort of under control, but ended up with the country in industrial turmoil, with strikes etc galore. 

 

The Thatcher years started well, but quickly became probably the worst government I ever worked for.  I felt a deep level of discomfort at the way she increasingly seemed to take on the role of Head of State, rather than just Prime Minister.  She was, I believe, a significant cause of the selfishness we see in society now.  I dearly wish that the Falklands conflict had never happened, both because I'd still have three friends who were killed and because I believe that Thatcher would probably not have been re-elected without it. 

 

Major ran a surprisingly competent government from my perspective, despite the public image he had.  The notable thing about his period of office was that he was pretty effective at getting the Civil Service to work well, probably the only PM who made some sort of effort to ensure things got done within government.

 

Then there was Blair, the second worse period of government that I had the misfortune to experience, and someone who was remarkably similar to Thatcher in many ways.  It's a toss up as to whether he was more or less despicable than Thatcher, in my view.  Thatcher was at least honest, if deeply unpleasant, whereas Blair was inherently dishonest and constantly tried to corrupt government from within by trying to get the Civil Service to break all long-standing codes of conduct and lie for him, or support his own lies.  Colleagues resigned and gave up their pension rights over some of Blair's antics, something that I never saw happen under Thatcher. 

 

Gordon Brown was pretty much a non-entity as far as any impact he had within government itself.  I suspect he was too focussed on the economy to be bothered with how his government actually worked.

 

Cameron was PM of the last government I worked for , and he was only in office for a short time before I retired, so I didn't really have time to form a view.  The only notable thing as far as I was concerned was that he took right and proper steps to reduce the size of the Civil Service quickly after coming into office.  Should have been done years earlier, as it had been allowed grow out of control when Blair and Brown were in office.

[Ferdinand]

On 14/02/2020 at 09:07, Jeremy Harris said:

I ended up watching a programme about private landlords last night (this: https://www.my5.tv/britain-s-council-house-millionaires/season-1 ).  Interesting to see how some entrepreneurs were preferentially buying former local authority built houses, with comments that they were usually quite well built. 

 

Accepting that it was a very biased view of a small section of the private rented sector, it did show just how much money a few are making from buying up houses that were sold under the right-to-buy scheme.  I'm biased, though, as I remain convinced the right-to-buy was an exceptionally flawed concept.  Had local authorities been allowed to use the receipts from houses sold under the scheme to build more houses, then it may have helped limit some of the social housing problems we're seeing now.  By banning or restricting local authorities from building new houses this scheme seems to have worked to make a few people relatively wealthy, without meeting the growing need for social housing.

 

Had a chance to watch the whole programme whilst baking bread this afternoon. Recommend others watch and disagree if you do. My comments are harsh on the programme editorial:

 

The landlords in the programme all seem absolutely fine. Long term business people investing in their houses, building up their businesses long term and providing a service to their customers that those customers want. All reputable, all straight and all competent, significantly taking on projects the Councils would not tackle. A couple of criticisms can be made eg the 3x chap with the flash car, but they are relative fleabites. Will return to that. I would expect any competent long term risk-taking business person to build a decent lifestyle over 10 years; my kitchen fitter has a replica Cobra in his garage for fun.

 

Comments can be made around the issues of "one way bets" in the property market, and "tax breaks" and so on, and especially around Councils not being allowed to reinvest etc. I think that is the real target of the programme makers, but the fools decided to go the traditional shock horror individual landlord demonisation route instead of making a serious argument. Instead they put forward an editorial account that is half prejudice and half lies. And the environment businesses operates in is set by the framework created by government.

 

IMO the most egregious lie was the one I pointed out - multiple references to the reduction in Council Home since 1980, juxtaposed with shock horror "some are now in the PRS", when in fact the vast majority of the fall in Council House numbers is down to stock transfers and houses now Owner Occupied. 800k are now in the PRS. 1.2 million are now Owner Occupied. 1.3 million are with Housing Associations. 0.5 million are with ALMOs - Arms Length Management Organisations. There was only one accurate mention afaics, about 30 minutes in.

 

There were rather strange suggestions about "Investors snapping up council houses at bargain prices". A transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller at an auction or via an Estate Agent is a market price not a "bargain". Even the signoff line was "But should investors be able to snap up ex-Council Houses at bargain proces". Again, stoking up prejudice. It is correct that there have been abuses - but this programme did  not document any.

 

The only slightly flash LL was a 32 year old who had built up a 25 property portfolio over 10 years - very much not get rich quick - and was shown with a flash car. But he was supplying inclusive bills rooms near central Manchester for under £100 a week, which is not gouging, for flexible tenancies for short term tenants. Not quite as savvy as he should be, because he mixed workers and students iirc.

 

There was an attempt to do the "turning lounges into bedrooms cruel horrible bastard landlords" thing, but if you talk to those kind of tenants they usually don't want and don't use a lounge and like the lower rent. A big dining kitchen is far better. 

 

Interesting programme, but an editorial cesspit. There seemed to be a couple of Generation Rent activists on the team - not acknowledged in the titles.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

Pretty much my take on it.

 

I picked up the "using lounges for bedrooms" bit. too.  As a student I shared a house with four others, and we each had a bedroom plus use of a shared lounge, kitchen and bathroom.  No one ever used the lounge, the landlord might as well have used it as another bedroom.

[Delicatedave]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

@Delicatedave,

 

Depends what you define as investment.  Pretty much all government revenue comes from taxation, and most of that revenue ends up being spent on stuff within the UK.  Whether government should invest in stuff or whether that investment should be left to private enterprise is a good question, though.

 

My experience of managing a fairly large government procurement, and having seen the results from quite a few other major procurements, is that, in general, the government (any government) is pretty incompetent.  Government systems mean that there is a high degree of risk averse behaviour, and this drives indecision.  Every entity that does business with government knows this, and has learned how to turn it to their advantage.  I would say that government should avoid any form of direct procurement of anything if at all possible.  The programmes I've been involved with that have allowed a main contractor to make investment decisions, with appropriate incentivisation so as to drive costs down, have, without exception, been delivered on time and under budget.  Those managed by government directly have all, without exception, come in late and over budget.

 

Having spent 35 years as a Civil Servant, the very last thing I'd ever want to see is the state running any form of industry.  The level of incompetence within government has to be seen to be believed.

 

When you say "we as a nation are not looking after our own people "  who is the "we"?  I think the biggest failing we have in modern society is that people never seem to think it is their responsibility to earn a living, save for their retirement, spend time caring for others, be unselfish etc.  It seems we have a culture of selfishness, where it's all about greed and a sense of entitlement.  We need to change things so that this crazy view that the state should somehow look after people as if they were children all their lives is knocked into touch, so that the majority who can work, do work, and contribute to the funding needed to look after those who, for whatever reason, either cannot earn a living or need care. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your view is goes around in circles, at one end you say people are selfish & greedy and then you link this with entitlement and should earning a living. That makes no sense and it seems to put the blame of problem in a nation on to individuals that really have little control. You can bet if we had 100% employment the problems would still be there because it's the politicians that have no answers not the people.

At the basic level we live in a community because that's what's best all all - the healthy, the skilled, the unhealthy & the unable to work. We are not employed and not born to work for a living. If you want a true fair balanced community you have to accept some people can't cope with life and others are much better make our lives better with things like art, music & alike. It's up to the community to support these people. Greed & selfishness is not providing the basic safety net, forcing people into things they don't want and decisions they don't want to make. It's not surprising some choose the easy option of not working or crime. They don't get born that way, their path is blocked, their life chooses are limited as those of their parents was and perhaps the parents before them.

it's up to government to make sure "community" works because if they don't it breaks down into a free for all and that's exactly what we are seeing now. And let's not forget this is not about one generation it's about history, each generation puts something in and their family has a right to draw from what they put in. After all rich people understood that centures ago that's why we still give peerages so son's can take their father's place in Lords.

 

[Delicatedave]

On 14/02/2020 at 08:55, Ferdinand said:

 

Whilst I agree with your general argument Jeremy, I think you will find cheap homes in ex-industrial areas - but you will not find huge numbers of Empty Homes. The UK's addressing of Empty Homes has been very good in most respects, compared to any other major country in Europe. Currently in England we only have a little over 200k "long term empties" (meaning 6 months or more), which is about 0.7%. It's a bit of a triumph, though orgs talking up housing crises don't usually say so. The numbers - both long and short term, have been reduced by about a third over 10-15 years and kept down.

 

What it means is that we are relatively tight compared to elsewhere. I am not sure how far it can be taken below that.

 

This is a Guardian Graphic from a piece in 2014 about Empties across Europe, using EU stats (explains why Merkel could take a million refugees):

 

 

And here is a piece from Spring 2019, pointing out that there are 216k empties in the England. Another piece here from Sept.

 

(Obvs being the Guardian one of them is written by a person who's numerical qualification is a Fine Arts Degree ? ).

 

There is a category error over time as the first 700k number is all of them (UK), whilst the 216k is England and Long Term ie empty for 6 months. This was a million or so in 2005. Also Scotland is some way behind England on this issue - now doing it, but is overall not a huge number on the stats as England is 85%+ of the UK in pop.

 

(Certainly in our area of the Midlands the market has hardened quite a bit in the last 12-18 months. Talking to my friendly Estate Agents whilst out for a walking lunch yesterday they are getting closer to asking prices than they were, and asking prices are up by 5-7% in 12-24 months - big change here which has been nearly flat for about 15 years with a couple of blips. I trust these particular EAs more to be candid than typical since I have bought a couple of houses from each of them over the last few years, and they know I can and will check as it is all published.)

 

The fount of stats on this subject is Action on Empty Homes and the ONS Licve Tables, who monitor down to tenure stats for each LA area.

 

Personally I am optimistic on HS2 - I think for this area it will really help as times to London will go under 2 hours from about 3 (that might be door to door numbers), which crosses a threshold and makes it a less-than-a-day trip so eg bosses get a couple of hours at work the same day. We get integrated. One interesting stat is that even the current West Coast Main Line upgrade (the Blair 9bn one) achieved a 20% modal shift from air to rail on the Glasgow route - 500k passengers a year. That is why I think Green policy will make HS2 link to Scotland in time. 

 

I see HS2 / HS3 / Electric to South Wales etc as just basic plumbing for a 21C economy.

 

Got quite cross because my newly minted Tory ex-Lab MP seems to think it is either HS2 OR Rural Bus Services. Twat.

 

Ferdinand

What always annoys me is the areas that made this country and gave the resources and wealth are the most deprived today. Why didn't they benefit like London?

[oldkettle]

10 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

Your view is goes around in circles, at one end you say people are selfish & greedy and then you link this with entitlement and should earning a living. That makes no sense and it seems to put the blame of problem in a nation on to individuals that really have little control. You can bet if we had 100% employment the problems would still be there because it's the politicians that have no answers not the people.

At the basic level we live in a community because that's what's best all all - the healthy, the skilled, the unhealthy & the unable to work. We are not employed and not born to work for a living. If you want a true fair balanced community you have to accept some people can't cope with life and others are much better make our lives better with things like art, music & alike. It's up to the community to support these people. Greed & selfishness is not providing the basic safety net, forcing people into things they don't want and decisions they don't want to make. It's not surprising some choose the easy option of not working or crime. They don't get born that way, their path is blocked, their life chooses are limited as those of their parents was and perhaps the parents before them.

it's up to government to make sure "community" works because if they don't it breaks down into a free for all and that's exactly what we are seeing now. And let's not forget this is not about one generation it's about history, each generation puts something in and their family has a right to draw from what they put in. After all rich people understood that centures ago that's why we still give peerages so son's can take their father's place in Lords.

 

You sound like you'd vote for Jeremy Corbyn any day. Government-owned enterprise, yes, that's a recipe for success of countries. 

 

Why, oh why can't people learn by looking at other countries that tried really hard and still failed miserably. Why can't they see that authoritarianism is not a bug but a feature of socialism. 

[Jeremy Harris]

42 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

You sound like you'd vote for Jeremy Corbyn any day. Government-owned enterprise, yes, that's a recipe for success of countries. 

 

Why, oh why can't people learn by looking at other countries that tried really hard and still failed miserably. Why can't they see that authoritarianism is not a bug but a feature of socialism. 

 

 

I'm convinced that the reason we ended up with BJ as PM had little to do with either him, or the policies of the Conservative party, but had everything to do with Corbyn being unelectable. Idealism makes for grand sound bites, but as you rightly say, extreme socialism is inextricably bound to authoritarianism, as the majority will never willingly vote for the restraint on personal freedom that Marxism implies.  If anyone doubts this, and doubts the inequality that Marxist socialism always delivers, then they only need to look at states like China. 

 

The shame of it is that one might have hoped that the Labour party would have learned this lesson from their disastrous spell with Michael Foot as leader, but no, the Marxist nutters in what used to be called Militant, which re-branded itself as Momentum, still fervently believed that they could bully members of the Labour party, and cause democratically elected Labour candidates to be deselected, in order to try and grab power.  Thankfully, the British electorate had the common sense to see through this tactic, and return the worst result for Labour since 1935.

 

The shame of it is that their insane actions have helped to destroy any meaningful opposition, and our form of government always seems to work best when there are checks and balances applied to the power of the ruling party by Her Majesty's Opposition.  I reckon the stupidity of the Corbinysta faction may have set the Labour party back by ten years or more.  Last time we saw a similar extreme left Labour leadership we had over 10 years of Conservative government, followed by another 13 years of what amounted to a right of centre Labour government that, for at least 10 years, was little different to the government of Thatcher.

[Jeremy Harris]

45 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

What always annoys me is the areas that made this country and gave the resources and wealth are the most deprived today. Why didn't they benefit like London?

 

 

For the very simple reason that we are part of a global free trade economy, and other nations could produce goods, or provide resources, for a much lower price.  Rational government cannot fight global pressure, especially not when constrained by having to comply with EU trade regulations.  If a country can produce something for a fraction of the price that the UK can, and the UK is unable to impose any meaningful restrictions on imports from that country, then ordinary people are going to always buy from the cheapest supplier.  This isn't the government dictating what happens, it's ordinary people.  People willingly choose to buy goods produced outside the UK when they are cheaper, and that drives more expensive UK producers out of business.

 

[epsilonGreedy]

18 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Idealism makes for grand sound bites, but as you rightly say, extreme socialism is inextricably bound to authoritarianism, as the majority will never willingly vote for the restraint on personal freedom that Marxism implies.

 

 

The front pages of today's news papers illustrate it did not take Marxism to restrain personal freedom in the UK. The Orwellian thought police are active and threaten your freedom today, so decreed a senior judge yesterday. 

Edited February 16, 2020 by epsilonGreedy

[Jeremy Harris]

What Orwell got wrong was that we've ended up in a position where governments are not the controlling, all-seeing, force in our lives, that role has been well and truly taken over by companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft et al.  No nation on earth has anything close to the data gathering, storage, analysis and societal control that these companies can wield, with the possible exception of a few authoritarian regimes that try very hard to prevent these companies from being able to influence their people.

 

Whether the actions of states like China, North Korea, Russia etc are acceptable is a matter of personal opinion.  One thing is for sure, the government of the UK is hopelessly outgunned by the resources available to any one of these global super power companies.

[Delicatedave]

1 hour ago, oldkettle said:

You sound like you'd vote for Jeremy Corbyn any day. Government-owned enterprise, yes, that's a recipe for success of countries. 

 

Why, oh why can't people learn by looking at other countries that tried really hard and still failed miserably. Why can't they see that authoritarianism is not a bug but a feature of socialism. 

You don't know me so don't tell me what I would do.

[Delicatedave]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Harris said:

 

 

For the very simple reason that we are part of a global free trade economy, and other nations could produce goods, or provide resources, for a much lower price.  Rational government cannot fight global pressure, especially not when constrained by having to comply with EU trade regulations.  If a country can produce something for a fraction of the price that the UK can, and the UK is unable to impose any meaningful restrictions on imports from that country, then ordinary people are going to always buy from the cheapest supplier.  This isn't the government dictating what happens, it's ordinary people.  People willingly choose to buy goods produced outside the UK when they are cheaper, and that drives more expensive UK producers out of business.

 

What when the mills were around, when the tin, lead & coal mines were around? No the regions that were wealthy in resources got raped and then ignored and they are still being ignored. Take this Fracking, where will the money go from the gas & oil shale ? not to the local people who live on the stuff and have to put up with the mess to get it out the ground.

[oldkettle]

9 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

You don't know me so don't tell me what I would do.

 

English is not my mother tongue but I am pretty certain "You sound like... " has a certain meaning. 

[Jeremy Harris]

12 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

What when the mills were around, when the tin, lead & coal mines were around? No the regions that were wealthy in resources got raped and then ignored and they are still being ignored. Take this Fracking, where will the money go from the gas & oil shale ? not to the local people who live on the stuff and have to put up with the mess to get it out the ground.

 

 

This isn't actually what happened, though, is it?  It might sound like there is some evil force suppressing the working man, in some sort of parody of the early days of the Industrial Revolution, but in reality what happened is that we got beaten at our own game, often by nations that we had once colonised.  Our cotton mills closed because they were uncompetitive; other nations could produce cloth at a lower price.  Our mines closed because the cost of production exceeded the price that their products could be sold for.  I've personal experience of his.  A very good friend, best man at our wedding, was a mine captain at Wheal Jane mine.  He, along with all the miners there, earned a very good living, until the tin mines in Indonesia started producing ore at a fraction of the price.  Within a year that mine, and all the others in the UK, closed, as they just could not compete.  The same applies to pretty much every manufacturing industry in the UK, our costs rose to the point where we became uncompetitive.

 

How would you propose that we retain highly uncompetitive industries in a global market?  Bear in mind that the UK lost the ability to impose its own import restrictions when it chose to join the EEC, so we had no means of preventing cheaper goods being imported.

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

until the tin mines in Indonesia started producing ore at a fraction of the price

And they stopped using the ITC, which was just a cartel designed to keep the supply of tin under control and the price high.

Also, river delta dredging became profitable as the technology improved.

Cornwall also did not invest in modern mining methods, assuming the hard rock mining was the only viable technique.  I think Chile led the way in mining during the late 80's and 90's.

South Crofty (our last working tin mine) was on TV the other night, saying that it is going to reopen.  Been hearing that all the time I have lived here.

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

And they stopped using the ITC, which was just a cartel designed to keep the supply of tin under control and the price high.

Also, river delta dredging became profitable as the technology improved.

Cornwall also did not invest in modern mining methods, assuming the hard rock mining was the only viable technique.  I think Chile led the way in mining during the late 80's and 90's.

South Crofty (our last working tin mine) was on TV the other night, saying that it is going to reopen.  Been hearing that all the time I have lived here.

 

 

All the ITC did was artificially prop up the price of tin for a few years, which kept the UK mines "profitable" for a year or two longer.  It delayed the inevitable, as the fundamental problem was that there was a global surplus of tin and other nations around the world could produce it as a much lower price than we could.

 

Arguably, we should take into account the environmental and human impact of these cheaper producers.  They often created a great deal of pollution, had labour practices that we would consider unacceptable as well as having poorer social care systems.  However, we're not a colonial power, and should not seek to impose our moral values on others.  The only power we have is if we, as a society, choose not to do business with states that don't meet our own threshold for what is reasonable.

 

However, we are all essentially hypocrites.  I, like most here I suspect, am typing this on a Chinese manufactured laptop.  I don't approve of the totalitarian Chinese Marxist regime, but have to accept that pretty much every bit of electronic equipment that I use has components that are made in China, perhaps under working conditions that we would find wholly unacceptable.  Our government has absolutely zero control over this; they have no power at all to restrict imports from China, even if they wanted to.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Arguably, we should take into account the environmental and human impact of these cheaper producers.  They often created a great deal of pollution, had labour practices that we would consider unacceptable as well as having poorer social care systems

I don't think we stack up too well on some of then, even today, and a few decades ago were had horrendous work practices.

Seabed dredging for minerals probably has the lowest long term environmental impact, mines around here are still polluting the place, or take constant maintenance, 30+ years after they closed.  You hardly see an 'old miner' these days, most have died prematurely, usually from asbestos.  St. Austell still has a lung cancer problem which they think is linked to the clay works.  Some of them are still producing.

Edited February 15, 2020 by SteamyTea

[Ed Davies]

13 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

The Orwellian thought police are active and threaten your freedom today, so decreed a senior judge yesterday. 

 

What are you talking about? I.e., which judge and what was the decree?

[Tennentslager]

43 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

 

What are you talking about? I.e., which judge and what was the decree?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-behave-like-gestapo-over-transphobic-tweets-warns-judge-zc9fpw3k8

[SteamyTea]

@Tennentslager

Can you copy and paste the article as it behind a paywall.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

@Tennentslager

Can you copy and paste the article as it behind a paywall.

 

 

 

There's a report on the BBC about the judgement: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-51501202

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

report on the BBC about the judgement:

Is this about the gobby ex copper.

 

Edited February 16, 2020 by SteamyTea