Mailwatch(ed) Forum

With the usual aside that I'd have to vote for him if I still lived in Cheltenham, this man is deeply irritating to me.

For our younger viewers, Ed was in Government from 2010-5, while Owen Paterson and Liz Truss were overseeing water. Some broadbrush stuff from Vince Cable in 2007 or whenever doesn't really cut it with me.

It's amazing how the coalition gets airbrushed from history.

Yeah, and how people who were in it still back what they did, Not even "we were outvoted", they actually support the austerity even now.

In other news.

The politics of this is interesting. I wonder if the Government could get some PIP reforms (I accept there need to be some, but not the chaotic approach we saw last month) if the two child cap was removed. On the other hand, the 2 child cap is popular cross party and regular tax rises are not much more popular than council tax rises.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 7:40 pm Yeah, and how people who were in it still back what they did, Not even "we were outvoted", they actually support the austerity even now.

In other news.

Yet another example of support for genocide from Starmer.

James O'Malley has a take on the recent changes to the planning bill,

https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/dont ... nning-bill

So what exactly happened? The rationale for the proposed changes appears to be that the government wants to placate a bunch of noisy “nature” groups, like the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust, who describe the Bill that completed passage through the Commons as a “licence to kill nature”.

So rather than pick a fight, it appears the government is attempting to find a compromise on how the new Bill will work.

The exact specifics of the amendments get pretty technical, but they concern Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) – a new thing the Bill is creating, which will set out how developers on projects must mitigate the impact of their build on nature. (You can see the proposed amendments here, submitted by government minister Baroness Taylor.)

And essentially, what the new amendments do is add in what the Wildlife Trust describes as new “safeguards” that strengthen the legal test for whether developments are meeting their EDPs.

This might sound innocuous – but it somewhat undermines what the Bill is attempting to do. This is because the enhanced legal “safeguards” will make it easier to, for example, take housing and infrastructure projects to judicial review – slowing things down again.

Then – slightly maddeningly – the changes will further empower Natural England as the decision-maker on whether “network conservation measures”1 (things like paying for a bat sanctuary elsewhere) are sufficient, or whether developers will have to do something on site (like build an absurdly expensive bat tunnel).

And don’t get me wrong, I care a lot about nature, but I think rowing back like this is a pretty insane thing to do. Because if you imagine a continuum running from “too much environmental red tape so nothing gets built” to “developer free-for-all that doesn’t care for nature”, the Bill itself ratchets the planning system significantly further towards development, but these amendments then move it back several notches in the wrong direction.

I thought bodies like Natural England were going to be taken out of the equation, because you just ended up with parts of the public sector sueing other parts of it?

But that doesn't sound terminal by any means. The presumption I have is that Natural England will say "No need for a £100m bat tunnel here, pay a smaller amount into a fund where it'll do a lot more good"

I dunno, maybe this will take some of the heat out of it. Because the politics aren't easy when you try to build stuff. People who lose their view of sterile farmland get very annoyed, the people who move into the new houses probably don't give you any thanks either.

The problem is that Natural England has form for blocking stuff, even blocking an office building that was meant for them.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 9:55 pm I thought bodies like Natural England were going to be taken out of the equation, because you just ended up with parts of the public sector sueing other parts of it?

But that doesn't sound terminal by any means. The presumption I have is that Natural England will say "No need for a £100m bat tunnel here, pay a smaller amount into a fund where it'll do a lot more good"

I dunno, maybe this will take some of the heat out of it. Because the politics aren't easy when you try to build stuff. People who lose their view of sterile farmland get very annoyed, the people who move into the new houses probably don't give you any thanks either.

Maybe it won't.



My fear is they'll make even more concessions.

Hopefully not. The OBR would get to score the reforms, like they did the earlier ones, and they certainly need the fiscal space.

In other news, this is interesting on the financial services reforms.

Basically they're not that huge, basically the minimum to stop a load more business going to New York where Trump is likely to do massive deregulation. Still, everyone seems to have decided it's "Back to 2007". This is the same sort of vibes politics whereby any improvement to workers rights is "back to the Winter of Discontent".

https://www.ft.com/content/c836f7a0-ab4 ... ff473df16f

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 10:20 pm The problem is that Natural England has form for blocking stuff, even blocking an office building that was meant for them.

Often these bodies take their steer from what the Government wants them to do. See eg Ofwat which would have understood the need for investment in water infrastructure as well as anybody but were mindful of (pre-Sunak) governments preferring lower bills.

Starmer under pressure from cabinet to recognise Palestinian statehood
Exclusive: Wes Streeting among ministers pushing for action after calling Israeli attacks on aid sites ‘intolerable’

The source for this may not have been unadjacent to Wes Streeting.

But it would be a good idea, especially if coordinated with other countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... -statehood

The support in the strike vote was very strong, but the BMA are not going to win many friends with this stuff. They basically say they don't care about other issues, it's only cross the board pay that matters, with a silly comparison using a stat the ONS dropped 12 years ago because it overstated inflation. They aren't even a particularly strong union in terms of direct industrial muscle anyway. All that happens is that people miss out on treatment and mostly blame them.

I hope they're given an off ramp.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Tue Jul 22, 2025 8:30 pm

Starmer under pressure from cabinet to recognise Palestinian statehood
Exclusive: Wes Streeting among ministers pushing for action after calling Israeli attacks on aid sites ‘intolerable’

The source for this may not have been unadjacent to Wes Streeting.

But it would be a good idea, especially if coordinated with other countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... -statehood

They should, although if they did a lot of the people who are demanding this will still label them war criminals. See here

This stuff is so much easier than doing proper work. Just repeat slogans all the time. Tax The Rich. Starmer War Criminal.

Jonathan Portes thinks we should kick out their ambassador which is one of the better ideas on Bluesky.

Long thread and accompanying article by Dan Neidle on wealth tax. Emphasizes the economic effect rather than "everybody will leave". It's deeply implausible how much they reckon they can raise from such a small number of people- £4bn from just 10 individuals. Not going to be difficult for these people to avoid it.

He suggests other ways of raising more money from the rich, but the problem with these is that they have obvious political downsides, with likely lots of losers who'll vote against you. So I think we're stuck with the wealth tax as a live political issue.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 23, 2025 12:05 pm Jonathan Portes thinks we should kick out their ambassador which is one of the better ideas on Bluesky.

Might be too much for Trump? Grim though it is to consider this.

Strangely I think that recognizing Palestine might be something sellable to him. "They used to have nice hotels in Gaza, I'm sure they'd love a Trump Hotel"

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Tue Jul 22, 2025 11:13 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Tue Jul 22, 2025 8:30 pm

Starmer under pressure from cabinet to recognise Palestinian statehood
Exclusive: Wes Streeting among ministers pushing for action after calling Israeli attacks on aid sites ‘intolerable’

The source for this may not have been unadjacent to Wes Streeting.

But it would be a good idea, especially if coordinated with other countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... -statehood

They should, although if they did a lot of the people who are demanding this will still label them war criminals. See here

I would like them to explain why? Like if you commit war crimes then fair enough, as of yet I can't see where Starmer has committed any.

He's complicit in genocide twitter said so.