Rayner's just the standard female Labour gobshite, from a long and undistinguished line. Abbott, Phillips, you don't need any ability other than being a shouty person. Although the NEC's eyes must have rolled back into their heads with excitement, in the style of Simon Cowell seeing a good looking young man with a half decent voice on X Factor, upon hearing her origin story. Not clever by any stretch, and if anything even more likely to abuse the expenses system, Apple earbuds and private schools anyone, but able to make their mouths go and relying on others not giving them a hard time for fear of being called sexist. I can't wait til she's calling the shots
There’s still not enough noise about this carry on and I thought the same, that the contracts must have been vague (deliberately?) so they are unable to legally recoup the money. There should be a criminal investigation into the awarding of some of the contracts. I know nowt about business due diligence but I reckon I could have done a better job on my own.
My guess is that Boris Johnson didn't deliberately organise the doling out of millions to his pals ... ... more likely that people, more clever and powerful than Johnson, knew they could easily take advantage of him. As he's spend a lifetime scrounging money and taking backhanders he's left himself open to having to return the favour. Quite a pathetic puppet of a man tbh.
Starmer's big day today. Just make sure you're not driving or operating heavy machinery while he's on
Sadly, that's his legacy and how he'll be remembered ... ... except by his man-crush fan club who still believe he's charismatic. Deluded is the right word.
Looks like labour pushing ahead with green belt building. It is ok though as they have decided to rename it grey belt. Taking us for idiots in my opinion.
Maybe there's a compromise there somewhere - you get to build on green belt if whatever is built there is eco-friendly in specific ways, maybe. Maybe even use it as leverage to get more affordable houses and infrastructure built in places people want to live rather than plonking five hundred houses down without a shop or pub or doctor's surgery or dentist or school anywhere near it.
Sky News' Sunak Pledge Tracker is pretty good. One on track, three making progress, one failing. For when the usual suspects inevitably wheel it out......
Has there ever been a more inept and wasteful government .... "The Department for Transport, which publishes High-Speed 2's invoices, has released invoices that mention Phase 2 more than 5,500 times, with a combined value of more than £1.25bn."
From what I understand they wouldn't allow building on what the general idea of green belt is. There are already car parks, industrial units etc that exist in what is classified as green belt land, and it's those kind of sites they want to allow to be developed.
One of the concerns I have with green belt building is the inevitable encroachment beyond agreed boundaries. So taking away a car park, to build houses means infrastructure is needed to support the new occupants and houses. You then see more buildings popping up and more green belt disappearing. Labelling it grey belt, in my opinion, is disingenuous because it will impact negatively green belt. If they really want to do something like this then they need to commit to a level of green and environment protection. Scandinavian countries have a decent record of getting a good balance of urbam expansion into green spaces. If Labour put in some rules around what and how things can be done then I will revisit my thinking.
I would say no, however the thing that worries me is I think there will be a few more contenders over the years to come. Whether it's the tories, Labour or anyone else for that matter, the state of British politics is nothing short of catastrophic. I've voted for different parties over the past for what I thought best suited my family and myself at the time , not because my great grandad was a miner or my great great grand mother was staunch tory. However I do feel for the next few years whoever gets in will continue to make a complete bollocks of things while continuing to blame the party before them. I'm not a politician or claim to be an expert on it, I'm just very worried what our future holds
I agree with much if this. When the last labour govt got the boot we had years of tories blaming the mess left behind. Labour already telling us it is 10 years to sort out the mess the tories have created. 10 years from now we will probably be desperate to get rid of Labour but only have a choice of tories coming into blame labour for years. Like you I really worry. The Labour party this week have said some admirable things. The problem is they want to borrow money to solve the problems. This idea of Starmer today of praising the new labour of Blair and Brown is mind boggling. They inherited a solid economy when they took power last time, one that could afford to borrow to invest. Our debt position at the moment is so bleak I think they will find it incredibly difficult to borrow what they will need and the admirable ambitions will be watered down. I dont think either main party is being honest with us about what they can achieve. The malaise set in decades ago, and the two most recent long standing governments have taken us backwards. When I hear the modern politician speak I am pretty underwhelmed and I have little hope of seeing any improvement.
