There's all sorts of conspiracy theory nonsense going around the net Imps.
It's far easier for Putin to influence the net than influence CNN, the BBC, or reputable newspapers.
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There's all sorts of conspiracy theory nonsense going around the net Imps.
It's far easier for Putin to influence the net than influence CNN, the BBC, or reputable newspapers.
Yep. The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, the FT. They all have their own slant, but they all try to maintain fairly high standards of journalistic integrity.
The same is true of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
A conspiracy site whose other articles feature the suggestion that the Rothschilds were behind the crash of MH370 and 9/11 Trutherism. Again, better sources needed.
The sky in Southampton seems to be showing the signs of Brexit today.
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Not the one I read. I just googled Soros / Catalan and that turned up as No1................until of course Open society's denial which is now No1. Power, influence and all that. gets you to the top of the rankings.
But being at the top of the Google rankings does not a good source make, particularly when it involves two things that aren't mentioned together in more mainstream sources. The some conspiracy site was one of the few that even connected the two words should tell you something. Also, "power and influence" didn't get Open Society's denial up there...the fact that they have a Twitter account with 150,000 followers did, because people clicked the link and that's how search engines work.
I could easily get the top-ranked site for ImpSaint + cannibalism, but that would not make my speculation on your taste for human flesh any more trustworthy.
Just watching BBC news and they were talking about how in a lot of places in the North (or not in London) that house prices have actually fallen since 2007.
So I thought I would check out my area. Yes I live in a council house but this is a mile from the Cathedral and there are a lot of big old houses scattered around here as well as being prime Northern outskirt new build land. There are more suburban new builds here now than council houses and they are still expanding outward to the ring road.
Anyway. Average price is now £140k and that is apparently down 8.3% on 2007. I assume that is in real terms adjusted for inflation rather than a straight like for like value.
I thought then I would check my parents ward. They live in an old 1920s area of semi detached houses. Hardly any new builds in that area. Probably a 50/50 split between 1920s on the main roads and 1960s semis and detached behind when they expanded the housing outward.
Their average value is £164k which is exactly the same as 2007 (must be adjusted for inflation as has gone from £130k to £164k.)
So I live in the North suburbs* of the city, surrounded by a lot of new builds and the house prices on average have gone down 8.3%. My parents live in the Southern suburbs of the city with virtually no new builds and their price has stayed the same. Both areas have some council housing in them that are virtually all 1940/50s builds (no stud/plasterboard walls.)
*I know someone will question my use of the word "suburbs" when I live on a council estate but I live virtually half a mile from the edge of the city. If I drew a straight line from my house to the A46 there would be about 10 houses between us and the A46, although they are now building on the field between the A46 and the last house for anyone who wants to live with that amount of road noise.
My 2 bed council house is valued around the £80k region. My parents 3 bed semi is in the £200k region. So neither of us are really representative of the average.
What it does suggest to me is that while you could attribute the results to my parents being in what is perceived to be a more desirable area, it seems like new builds are less attractive and do not attract the kind of price older houses do. I think that may be one of the main drivers of their area maintaining value!!
My area is probably now 60% new build (last 20/30 years new builds) and the new build % is rising.
My parents area is about 5% new builds. There quite literally is no land left available to build on so most of the houses are older than 1970.
So I thought I would check out my area. Yes I live in a council house but this is a mile from the Cathedral and there are a lot of big old houses scattered around here as well as being prime Northern outskirt new build land. There are more suburban new builds here now than council houses and they are still expanding outward to the ring road.
Anyway. Average price is now £140k and that is apparently down 8.3% on 2007. I assume that is in real terms adjusted for inflation rather than a straight like for like value.
I thought then I would check my parents ward. They live in an old 1920s area of semi detached houses. Hardly any new builds in that area. Probably a 50/50 split between 1920s on the main roads and 1960s semis and detached behind when they expanded the housing outward.
Their average value is £164k which is exactly the same as 2007 (must be adjusted for inflation as has gone from £130k to £164k.)
So I live in the North suburbs* of the city, surrounded by a lot of new builds and the house prices on average have gone down 8.3%. My parents live in the Southern suburbs of the city with virtually no new builds and their price has stayed the same. Both areas have some council housing in them that are virtually all 1940/50s builds (no stud/plasterboard walls.)
*I know someone will question my use of the word "suburbs" when I live on a council estate but I live virtually half a mile from the edge of the city. If I drew a straight line from my house to the A46 there would be about 10 houses between us and the A46, although they are now building on the field between the A46 and the last house for anyone who wants to live with that amount of road noise.
My 2 bed council house is valued around the £80k region. My parents 3 bed semi is in the £200k region. So neither of us are really representative of the average.
What it does suggest to me is that while you could attribute the results to my parents being in what is perceived to be a more desirable area, it seems like new builds are less attractive and do not attract the kind of price older houses do. I think that may be one of the main drivers of their area maintaining value!!
My area is probably now 60% new build (last 20/30 years new builds) and the new build % is rising.
My parents area is about 5% new builds. There quite literally is no land left available to build on so most of the houses are older than 1970.
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I've definitely read that older houses are more in demand than new builds. I can't really say why though.
I live in a 2 bed (designed as 3 but really the 3rd is a large hallway that you have to go through to get to the other bedroom and only bathroom, really poorly designed, argued it with the council and got it down as 2 for tax reasons) 1920's house in Sholing which is worth around the 250k-300k now i believe. It is detached and has a large garden. Its increased in value massively over the past 15 years though, over doubled i believe, at least if you look and neighbouring sales.
Unrelated but a couple of years ago i had a elderly neighbour who lived a few houses down, who i used to pop over to help him with things from time to time, who had a stroke and was taken into care but was still hoping to go back. He had apparently appointed his neighbour to take over his finances etc. A month or so later i noticed a sold sign outside the house. Looked online and found his neighbour had sold it to himself for half its value, and looking at his facebook page, had also sold off all its contents, family heirlooms and stuff. In the will he had intended everything to go to charity... Started crying when we told him about it.
Reported it to the Office of the Public Guardian, and i believe it went to court and eventually were forced to pay the remainder of the value of the property into the estate so it was sold for value effectively. No other punishment and still in control of his finances i understand from the elderly gents sister. One of those things that makes you lose faith in humanity
I live in a 2 bed (designed as 3 but really the 3rd is a large hallway that you have to go through to get to the other bedroom and only bathroom, really poorly designed, argued it with the council and got it down as 2 for tax reasons) 1920's house in Sholing which is worth around the 250k-300k now i believe. It is detached and has a large garden. Its increased in value massively over the past 15 years though, over doubled i believe, at least if you look and neighbouring sales.
Unrelated but a couple of years ago i had a elderly neighbour who lived a few houses down, who i used to pop over to help him with things from time to time, who had a stroke and was taken into care but was still hoping to go back. He had apparently appointed his neighbour to take over his finances etc. A month or so later i noticed a sold sign outside the house. Looked online and found his neighbour had sold it to himself for half its value, and looking at his facebook page, had also sold off all its contents, family heirlooms and stuff. In the will he had intended everything to go to charity... Started crying when we told him about it.
Reported it to the Office of the Public Guardian, and i believe it went to court and eventually were forced to pay the remainder of the value of the property into the estate so it was sold for value effectively. No other punishment and still in control of his finances i understand from the elderly gents sister. One of those things that makes you lose faith in humanity
Unrelated but a couple of years ago i had a elderly neighbour who lived a few houses down, who i used to pop over to help him with things from time to time, who had a stroke and was taken into care but was still hoping to go back. He had apparently appointed his neighbour to take over his finances etc. A month or so later i noticed a sold sign outside the house. Looked online and found his neighbour had sold it to himself for half its value, and looking at his facebook page, had also sold off all its contents, family heirlooms and stuff. In the will he had intended everything to go to charity... Started crying when we told him about it.
Reported it to the Office of the Public Guardian, and i believe it went to court and eventually were forced to pay the remainder of the value of the property into the estate so it was sold for value effectively. No other punishment and still in control of his finances i understand from the elderly gents sister. One of those things that makes you lose faith in humanity
That is awful. Not just the theft/fraud aspect but the "punishment."
When new builds are new........i.e. straight from the developer and often you get to choose the interior and trimmings they are a premium price. They do sell well. Once they have been lived in people do prefer to buy the sturdier old houses which more often than not have a bigger garden.
Another aspect is that new builds tend to be all 3 bed upward "executive" houses. By this I mean that they are hardly building any smaller "non executive" houses that are the ones that the rental market, first timebuyers want.
Countering the 8.3% reduction in prices in my ward, My council house is currently at £80k (going by 2 (private) that sold earlier this year. When we moved here in December 2007 they were selling at £55k to £65k. Similar can be seen in the Terraced areas in town. The "cheaper" houses have increased by a third bucking the trend while the more expensive houses have reduced. This of course causes a cycle.
If you are in your terrace and the value has gone up by a third while the 3 bed semi have stayed the same then a lot more people are moving up to the next rung.
The property portfolios and first time buyers are snapping these smaller houses up within days of them going on the market thus the "cheaper" house prices continue to buck the trend.
All the while more and more "executive" homes are being built.
So I think a lot of it is that the supply in the middle of the market is growing while the supply at the bottom of the market is not or reducing if you count houses available for those that want them in an increasing population.
I don;t know what value my Mum and Dad's house was 15 years ago. I know they bought it for £15k in 1981 which after inflation (using the BoE calculator) works out at £53k so they've quadrupled their money there.
What definitely needs to happen in the housing market is a focus on smaller "starter" homes. It is becoming pointless every single development being "executive" housing with a couple of smaller ones added to appease. Maybe they could try and build some houses without the posh porch with roman pillars and conservatory included as standard?
The BBC report today, though raising some good points, was similar to the puff on generational financial friction they did yesterday. a bit poor and not challenging some silly statements.
The gap in housing value is surely growing but has always been there and, like interest rates, should be considered by all making a life changing decisions such as a house purchase. I was laughing out loud at the lady interviewed yesterday saying her generation were in debt because of the facilities and systems provided by a previous generation so should be let off their debts.
If you've chosen to buy a house to live in, to suit work, schools, and your social life then any increase in value is a bonus surely. Those of us who survived the 80s would know all about negative equity and high interest rates, something cheerfully forgotten when we're told we had it easy. We've always lived in areas where housing was not cheap (Sussex, Rural Dorset and Wimborne) but paid out much more earlier in our working lives to achieve that.
As my wife pointed out yesterday our first car (excluding my **** bikes and occasional £50 Robin Reliant) cost £150, about 2 weeks wages. It lasted for three years. The BBC should be looking at people entering those silly lease car arrangements which is stacking up loads of debt without much of a final reward.
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You echo my main gripe whenever I hear about this generation being worse off than previous ones. The media and those pushing this narrative seem to forget just how many sacrifices people used to have to make, how few luxuries (even food treats) people went without just to pay the mortgage.
But then again a lot of those that believe this are moaning about the "oldies" over their daily £2.50 cappuccino with £2 croissant while tapping away on their up to date smartphone, buying their packed lunches ready made, trotting off to the gym every day after work and "only" eating out once a fortnight with their night-time activities cut down to once a week.
They just can't believe that for a lot of the previous generations (like my parents) hardly went out at all for a decade until the mortgage payments had reduced. And food treats were scant. Even chocolate biscuits or packets of crisps were a once a week thing. Packed lunches and flasks were a normal every day thing. Some of the meals were as basic as. Food was more expensive anyway where it has been pretty stagnant over the past decade.
I can understand the moans about the housing market itself because I agree with that. However I stop listening when people suggest previous generations had it better while they are wasting so much money.
That list above alone per month would be about £400 a month and it is a selective small list. Add on the TV packages, add on all the other little "normalities."
Previous generations would have stopped spending all of the above and pulled their belts in, changed to freeview, and be buying all the basic foods, cutting out the brands entirely.
I know that isn't the solution to being able to afford a mortgage. I am just answering the constant insistence that the boomers and Gen X had it so good. Not just the 80s were grim. It was pretty grim throughout the nineties too. It was only in the mid nineties that more spare cash was appearing in our wallets than before but at the same time as our wages improved faster, prices went up faster too. From the millennium onward prices have really slowed down.
As for inflation. Do they not think the living wage might be the reason for that? Every person in the chain at the bottom and near to the bottom has had a boost.
To be fair, what the modern media bang on about, about the youth, or younger people in society is that their dwindling number are having to pay the pensions of baby boomers [bbs]. Are priced out of homes because bbs have bought them all, and finally, their chances of having a prosperous life, less encumbered by the free flow of labour and culture, dropped through the floor when bbs voted to leave Europe. Older bbs have had the best chances, in a relatively guilt free environment. The earliest ones established themselves in an environment of full employment, so they were able to get a foot hold on the housing market if they had a modicum of sense. They've barely had to be responsible about the environment, yet they've had a field day with it, and it is the younger members of society, and those who come after them, who will foot the bill for bbs having a nice time. Plus, bbs had free access to higher education, with grants. The young have to choose between racking up the debt, or deciding whether to chance their arm getting a job without higher education, knowing full well their chances of buying a house is practically nil.
I'm 59, so I'm post-baby boom, but I know very well how hard it is for the younger people in society. I have 12 nephews and nieces. They are way more educated than the average older person, yet I doubt whether they'll get anywhere near as financially stable and worry free in their lifetimes. Just because they live in an era of faster and faster technical progress where 'science and technology will find a way', doesn't mean to say that their lives will be any richer than previous generations.
I'm 59, so I'm post-baby boom, but I know very well how hard it is for the younger people in society. I have 12 nephews and nieces. They are way more educated than the average older person, yet I doubt whether they'll get anywhere near as financially stable and worry free in their lifetimes. Just because they live in an era of faster and faster technical progress where 'science and technology will find a way', doesn't mean to say that their lives will be any richer than previous generations.
An awful lot of the personal debt that is now giving cause for concern to the BoE, is in fact people relying on credit cards and other loans just to get them to the end of the month. I know this to be true in London, where stagnant wages and soaring housing costs are tipping many working people off the edge of a financial cliff.
The old "I bet they all have mobile phones/Sky TV subscritions etc" arguments do not apply in many of these cases. In simple terms, many working people simply aren't being paid enough to meet their basic needs - the cost of living, not just in the capital but also throughout the Home Counties and probably into places like Southampton and the SW, is beyond the incomes of many working people.
The old "I bet they all have mobile phones/Sky TV subscritions etc" arguments do not apply in many of these cases. In simple terms, many working people simply aren't being paid enough to meet their basic needs - the cost of living, not just in the capital but also throughout the Home Counties and probably into places like Southampton and the SW, is beyond the incomes of many working people.
Yeah, the "kids today with their luxuries and/or basic necessities" fluff misses the basic reality that wage growth has (depending on the country) either flattened out or actually gone down, at the time that housing prices have ballooned and the cost of education has skyrocketed.
As an example: real wages over a thirty-year period from 1986 - 2016 grew by 29% in the UK. In the preceding thirty years, they grew by 85%...and that includes several years of stagnation at the beginning of that period as the UK slowly regained its post-war economic footing. Meanwhile, the inflation-adjusted cost of a house more than doubled in that span, and the cost of a degree has also skyrocketed, from being entirely free to costing a fraction of a year's average wage for a full four year's of tuition in the 90s, to the accumulated debt from a four-year program now being nearly double the average wage.
So, thirty years ago, the median house price was about 4.7x the average wage, and you could attend university free if you hit your marks. Today, the median house price is 9.2x the average wage; combine that with a degree, and you could devote every pound you receive for more than a decade and still find yourself in debt, and that isn't including taxes paid or interest on the necessary loans.
Worth mentioning that the picture is even worse elsewhere...that 29% growth in real wages in the UK? In the US, real wages had actually fallen from 1964 to the early 2010s...they've only barely risen above par since, and that's a more than 50 year period! While wages went nowhere, housing doubled (the average age of an individual buying a home in the US is 44, where it was once late 20s/early 30s) and the cost of a university degree jumped by several hundred percent.
But tell me again that the problem is expensive coffee. It's deeply ironic, ImpSaint, that you see conspiracies around every corner, but cannot see how the western countries have not only accepted but embraced the shifting of the burden from government to consumer debt, helping in the process to inflate the banking sector to its position of economic (and often political) power and drastically increasing inequality. Perhaps it's too obvious? I mean, one doesn't need to trawl the depths of fever-swamp blogs, given that it's happening in plain sight.
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I disagree. The narrative ignores the sacrifices that "BBS" made to get to where they are now. The focus is entirely on "they have all the wealth" and ignores what went before. Just think about another simple one. Why do most "oldies" record collections stop at the year they settled down? Because you had to buy your music so it was another thing they gave up. Young people get their music free these days and young adults continue to consume "new music" throughout their settled life.
The previous generations have their comfort now because they sacrificed the "niceties" before. Your mention of "modicum of sense" is key there. They cut everything out to get those houses because they had sense.
bbs had free access to higher education? How many did? You are equating an era where only the cream (<7%) had the opportunity for that while we are in an era where over 50% have that chance. And with my cycnical hat on (for a rare occasion
) that is more to do with falsifying the unemployment figures and "hoorah, we have the lowest youth unemployment in Europe." Add into that the majority will never pay that money back it is just a headline statement.I am not saying it is not hard for younger people in society. I am just questioning the constant suggestion that previous generations had it better. They might have it better now but they didn't while they were getting where they are now.
The reality is that the ones moaning ARE the ones that are going the higher education route. The ones, as you say, didn't chance their arm looking for work at 16. The ones really struggling are the other 50% that can;t get into Uni despite the abundance of places (and thus lower entry requirements.)
And I would question that the young are "way more educated" than the average older person. That is a ridiculous statement. How many of the "educated" young do you need to correct when they come out with their limited learning of history, geography and any number of other things? That is a terrible statement to come out with. My Grandparents all left school at 14, 15. My Grandads worked as a postman and Assembly line worker at Ford Dagenham. My grandmothers both housewifes. They had more knowledge in their brains than any young will ever get despite the access to information on the internet. They had knowledge of the world, customs. You could ask them all sorts of things on most subjects and they would know the answer to a pretty good level of detail. They knew how everything worked, where virtually every country was, a detailed knowledge of history (not just the wars.) They knew all about physics and sciences and most importantly could write in perfect legilble English with correct grammar and punctuation and they could add up without a calculator (or iphone app.)
If education is based purely on going to Uni then I'm afraid they need to scrap most of that and get the young back into the real world and back to 3 TV channels because what a lot of Uni students come out with is a pile of **** showing that they have not learned anything.
Yes they might have more language skills. They might have a much more in depth knowledge of their "chosen" subject. That is through opportunity though and no fault of the old nor any indicator of aptitude or intelligence. Most Uni students would get beaten in a tough quiz by an oldie that didn;t go to Uni because these days they seem to have such a limited area of knowledge.
I left school at 16. I would take most Uni students on in an IQ test and general knowledge test. I bet I would beat most of them. OF course there are still that "cream" of 7% that should be at Uni but the rest?
When they stop moaning about how the BBS had it better and realise they didn't, they scrapped and scraped to get to where they are now then I will listen to them. But they won't. They do not realise that in their "tough lives" they have all sorts of "normalities" that previous generations would have cut out. Just in the food they think of as normal regular and not luxury there is a vast amount that previous generations would have cut out of their budget in order to get to where they are.
As for pensions. The previous generations paid higher tax, higher NI contributions, no tax credits, no free daycare so Mum had to stay at home, high inflation, high interest rates. They paid more % into the pot while they were working and yet now they are attacked for how "easy they had things?"
Blame the government for spending what they put in if you want but the young can F*** off until they realise how hard previous generations had it compared to what they consider hard now.
It is strange how previous generations just got on and made the best out of things, Had fun for as little money as possible. We used to talk about grumpy old men but the ones that do all the moaning these days are the young.
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Yes I know Brendan O Neill. He is editor of spiked? I agree with some things he says but every now and again he gets carried away in his own narrative and starts to draw straight lines from A to Z ignoring all the letters in between.
I agree with him in the main but on some things he gets lost in his own self. (Yes maybe bit like I do at times.)
You are doing straight lines now. "Wage growth was higher" ignores that product and goods were higher cost as well in proportion. Property was rising yes but basic foods were more expensive. There was not so many "home brands" back then, It was all branded, normal folks had limited grocery choices because the foods we eat today (and consider normal) were more expensive.
It is stupid when the RPI and BBC types go and check a shopping basket and they have all branded items in their basket. We are constantly told that food is more expensive now than it was back then but it isn't. We are buying a much wider variety of foods that were out of people's price range back then. What they do when they compare these food lists is compare a middle class shopping trip. I buy cheap toilet paper not Andrex. 6 rolls for 79p. I buy homebrand baked beans for 23p, homebrand ketchup of 30p. Get that in the shipping basket and tell me groceries have gone up in price (Accounting for inflation.)
Paracetamol and Aspirin is less than 30p a pack.
You can't just draw a straight line of higher wage growth, higher house prices and degree costs most people will never pay back = having a harder time. You also can't take the narrative of a middle class grocery shop being representative of how it costs more to eat. I don;t eat the "crap" my Mum used to put on the table. I did then because it was the food. I like to eat nicer foods in the main than when I was a kid in the eighties but I am not trying to equate the food I eat as costing more than the food that I used to eat to talk about a narrative. My groceries probably do cost more adjusted for inflation than back then but I am not eating liver, heart, the cheapest cuts, peas every night as veg and some of the other awful food that was necessary to eat back then.
I already said I agree on housing. I am talking about the young's perception that previous generations had it so much better. They have much more expectation of what their standard of living should be and seem oblivious to the fact that previous generations have it better now because they toughed it out working their way there.
I am not saying it is expensive coffee. That is a representative unit of a much bigger story. It is one component of hundreds that the current generation see as normal. As part of normal life and not an extra they should really think about giving up. "Every little helps" says Tesco. "It all adds up" My Mum used to say.
Add all that stuff up together. Very easy for a "naysayer"like you to simplify it down to one element (coffee) to suggest an argument is flawed when you know full well that people today have an abundance of things they spend money on that they consider as normal where previous generations would see them as "extras."
In an age where the young "have it so hard" how come all the coffee shops are full mostly of young people? The sandwich bars? Do you not think if they added up all their "little" spends that they might be surprised just how much they could save?
As for the government shifting the debt? Have you not read what I have said for the whole of this thread? I have been saying they do this. What I would say to you though is that government debt is also the debt of the very same people. The government debt IS the people's debt.
What has that got to do with people spending money on coffees etc? Are they paying for them on credit cards? Do you not agree they should think twice about their coffees? And please remember that I am not just talking about a coffee a day. I am talking about the £40 a month contract mobile, the £10 a month netflix, the gym membership, the finance on the 2 year old car they decided on instead of the 5 year old one. Should they not think twice? After all they are the ones moaning about debt.
I've been there done that. Paid off £15k of debt in full while on benefits with a young family. No credit anymore. I/we choose what to buy in terms of extras. We don't buy "nearly new" cars anymore, we buy cars when they are 5+ years old and pay cash not credit.
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I've just watched that....all 17 minutes. No I am not Brendan O 'Neill despite that video sounding like my words. I agree with 99.99% of what he says there. The only thing I don;t agree with is early on r.e. the environment part. We should be looking after the environment although I do have doubts as to how much "looking after the environment" is going on and more than a cynical impression that it is more about "how much can we earn out of this."
Saying that I do turn my lights off when I leave a room. I do turn off my TV and other stuff. I have LEDs throughout the house (Poundland sells LEDs.......for a pound) and I do recycle religiously. That is just common sense but doesn't stop the suspicion (reality) that there is a lot more to do with earning money out of the green issue than actually solving it. After all how can the same person who argues in favour of cheaper flights and commute into work everyday bang on about the environment.
And how can they say they like nature when their gardens are the same manicured unnatural squares as non environmentalists. When nature happens in their gardens they rip it out.
His main sentiment is the same as mine r.e. what globalisation (the process not the sales pitch) actually is. The whole idea that we/some of us of a certain disposition are being moulded to conform. That the oxymoron of what liberals talk about as freedom is actually a suppression of freedom. That these people are being manipulated as pawns of the "establishment." It is strange he uses the same phrases as me, calling them "footsoldiers" but then I have been noticing a fair few of these type of commentators using phrases that I have used for a long time. Maybe because I have quite literally thousands, if not a million or more, posts on several platforms and a lot of these journalists actually do read comment sections because they want to get a feel of "public mood." They don't "click off" because there are so many racist or insulting comments (neither do I) because you have to sift past them to get to the valid and well thought out ones. "clicking off" just leaves you in an echo chamber.
Anyway, Brendan O'Neill (based on what he says in that video) is 100% on the money and correct. And he is a far-leftie marxist. While "modern day centrist" lefties might consider him being against humanitarianism because they want a narrow and limited viewpoint of who can be in their group, I see what he is saying as trying to help people wake up from their conformity and realise that they aren't making the world better, they are holding it back.
And he is totally right r.e. BBS living in squalor. Maybe different for the affluent folks of Southampton on this forum but I remember my Grandparent's house in Romford had an outdoor loo as did my Grandparent's house in Stanmore Winchester. By the time I went to these places they of course also had an indoor bathroom but that is by the by. These were 70s additions.
Incidentally. The house I grew up in still has an outdoor loo. Just that the door on the outside has been bricked up and one put in-between the kitchen and a radiator added within. The house I grew up in has a tiny 3rd bedroom literally the size of a king size bed wall to wall. That is because of a small bathroom being added in the 70s which made that bedroom much smaller.
The house that I grew up in was decorated once in a blue moon and by the time I left in 2004 (yes I lived at home until 29) it still had the same horrible shiplap wood panels on the walls of the living room that were there when my parents moved in in 1981!!! I would guess that in that 23 year spell of living in that house each room had a change of wallpaper once!!! And furniture changed once!!! Previous generations did not continually update their decor.
Do you disagree with Brendan O'Neill? I think people who do disagree with him are in for a shock that there are more people who agree with him in this country than disagree despite the constant bombardment on the TV, radio and internet telling them that they must not think this way, speak this way or act this way. You are not allowed to behave that way. We are banning you from being free so conform. Although his views on open borders might not get such an agreement.
The amount of times in that video Peter Tatchell nods in agreement and suppresses a chuckle (many times unsuccessfully) should tell you something.
Anyway thank god that populism has been defeated again in Austria eh? Will the EU put sanctions on Austria like they did last time if the FPO go into coalition? Or just insist that they aren;t allowed like they did in Portugal?
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