From what I’ve read financial equality makes the biggest economic sense, but that means relinquishing power. When you have it you keep it, when you have little you share it.
I think a fundamental change in how the planning process works is needed. The main argument against these things seems to be the lack of infrastructure to support new developments. They just get plonked on the edge of a town and left for everyone else to sort out. I've seen it first hand as one of the first people into a new estate down in Amesbury a few years back. A year for a shop to appear, two for a pub etc. There should be a commitment required to build the associated infrastructure as part of any deal to build new houses and have it all ready for the first day people move in. Remove the reasons for objection.
Not sure if there was any real reason for objection, other than Gove keeping some local Con nimbys happy, that the CoE's point... local council approved.
Council doesn't have the final say in a lot of cases. In fact, you often get councils saying yes safe in the knowledge someone else will stop it for them. That's why you have to remove any and all excuses to stop it from going ahead. That's just the way it is, and why things have to change.
Building houses is a two fold problem. We need more, but havent got many places to put them. Labour want to build on green, tory on brown. Massive problems with both. I live in a part of our green and pleasant land and they have been arguing over buiding on some stunning green surrounding areas. Nobody wants them to, including me. Labour big majority here now but they wont last if they start taking away the countryside round here. I was talking to a newly elected local councillor recently and told them exactly that. Massive local opposition to it. Then there is the infrastructure which isnt enough here for what the population level as it stands. Obvious stuff like schools and doctors etc. The real problem is tiny rural roads to get to a decent commuter route. Sewar systems wont handle the demand from additional houses. Other problems too. There is a fair bit of old mining land but making it fit for housing costs a fortune. Easy peasy for Starmer and Sunak to say build, but there is plenty of land owned by building companies and not much in the way of progress. There are reasons for that I would say.
My mate was part of a large company who quoted for these housing projects and once they had been accepted they were told you have to put a children’s park in the price, you have to upgrade the quality of all the fittings in the houses, you have to cover the costs of the roads and roundabouts etc, so they told the council to f uck off and don’t bother with social housing anymore.
The acting PM has tried to push the blame for the barge fiasco onto the Fire Brigade for voicing safety concern. "I'll directly accuse them but say it 'gently' ... ... what does that even mean you pasty faced little mummy's boy
It suggests to me that the sticking plaster approach of our government, to an issue that has such a serious impact our society, is ill thought out, confused and the actions of the desperate. Whatever happened to impact assessments. I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in my job if I attempted to introduce some of the things this lot have.
It stands to reason that a boat designed to a certain standard, for accommodating just over 200, will struggle with 550. Anyone who's endured the pointless stupidity of people on ferries, jostling down narrow windowless staircases, will know there's a potential disaster here. 550 single young males will be sitting around bored, dopey and probably smoking ... .... and, of courrse, the quickest way to escape being imprisoned there would be to set the thing on fire. No wonder the Fire Brigade are reluctant to take responsibility.
Is it just me or is this boat thing and the Rwanda thing just "gaslighting"? Surely they could just employ more civil servants to process the asylum claims. The French have even offered to let us do it over there. But that wouldn't give the Daily Heil and Torygraph the chance to print headline stories about "stop the boats" which in turn their "readers" will jump on like an oversexed dog on a woman's leg
There is also some old RAF base which is supposed to house 1,700 refugees, but atm the water is contaminated and the few there are falling sick. Plus the WiFi isn't working so administration and processing is not possible. Its a shambles... you could not make it up.
IIRC there was a big backlog in getting passports (a mate of mine was tempted out of retirement, getting £30-£40phr) renewed...as you say the optics of that was bad, so they staffed up and by and large cleared the backlog.
That’s a misleading news article mind, water tests showed the quality was excellent both before and after the event in the swimming area. The poor water reading in question is outside of the swimming area and past the piers. It still looks bad and definitely needs investigating, plus I wouldn’t trust a thing that the water companies say but it’s lazy journalism as usual.
Remember that when we've got concentration camps and these people are suffering. All other options were 'sick and evil'
If Ascension Island is plan B I'll go over to Calais and get on a dinghy myself. We need to do something like this for a year or two, ignore the bad headlines and the reeing from the lawyers and do-gooders, and the boats will stop.
