There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this Randeep Ramesh piece in the Grauniad. However, the coalition is concerned that these levels of building will not meet the demand for properties, particularly in south-east England where outright normal home ownership is not an option for many. So [Danny] Alexander and his Tory cabinet colleague Eric…
Read More Two simple plans – mine and anotherIain Martin has done a book about the Royal Bank of Scotland, entitled Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy after their corporate slogan from the boom era. I’m gradually reading the books that fell out of the banksplosion, and I would rate this one not as…
Read More Making It Happen: How Thatcherism Just Happened Like That And It Was Nobody’s FaultOK, so I’m weirdly obsessed with “Create Streets”. Here’s some more. Will Fulford is a co-founder of The Urban Market Company, a joint venture focusing on mixed use developments of niche independent retail, workshops and market stalls. Its first acquisition was Camden Lock, one of London’s most iconic urban markets. Will is an Academician for…
Read More Even more twisted obsession.Another “Create Streets” thing. When I drew Dave Hill’s attention to their dodgy past in the Irish property bubble, the immediate reaction was to claim that we were both “obsessive”. @createstreets @DaveHill tell me, is there a Tory HQ book that says to always say critics are "obsessed" — Alex Harrowell (@yorksranter) January 10, 2014…
Read More Twisted Obsessive.The “Create Streets” lot are being mithered by the very serious people again. Dave Hill of the Guardian and Faisal Islam from the Ha! Ha! Poors Channel have been at it since the turn of the year. London housing crisis: Create Streets? Fine. But who decides? http://t.co/Pz6x2ep2yG — DaveHill (@DaveHill) January 10, 2014 interesting: “@createstreets:…
Read More who you gonna call? the unacceptable behaviour teamSo, back in March we were transitioning towards a low-trust society via the phenomenon of the bogus hairdresser. I identified a maximum at the chilly limit of 1.16 million people who might be kept off the official unemployment number via Work Programme wipe-your-own-arse classes, zero wage placements, or bogus hairdressing. I didn’t believe it was…
Read More The missing millions, found hairdressingFrances Coppola’s fine blog points out that Will Hutton is wrong, and so is George Osborne. Letting Chinese banks trade in the UK as branches of the parent company (like: Bank of Ireland), not subsidiaries (like: Bank of Ireland (UK) Ltd), may perhaps get the UK taxpayer off the hook should they go bust but…
Read More We don’t need two kinds of bank, “bank” and “bank(if you dare)”So Andy Coulson, famously, was subject to a background check by Control Risks before joining Downing St. There was some doubt as to whether he had actually gone through the positive vetting process. Supposedly he had, and he was cleared to see “Strap 1” material. But then it turned out in fact the DVA hadn’t…
Read More We didn’t let Coulson see anything sensitive except for the SIGINTThis is old news, but there was something I wanted to pick out here. Farage said: “Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes, of course we want to deal with illegal immigration, but what’s the point of rounding people up at railway…
Read More Nigel Farage is right. Far right. But also, right.Kantel makes a point I’ve tried to make before about Green politics. He’s having a go about the German Green party leader, Renate Künast, who’s decided it would be cool to order all public service canteens to observe a vegetarian day every week. He remarks that the party is a mixture of “neoliberalism dyed green,…
Read More Austerity with organic cupcakes