[soulboy]

Had a look at the Hungerford development. An additional 100 homes on the outskirts of a town with a population of about 6000. 40 or those homes are with an affordable homes provider.

Pick any direction and head two miles and you will find far more horses than people, prime racehorse country.

If that is the best example of overdevelopment in AONBs that they can find i don't think we have too many concerns.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Poundbury looks like an odd pastiche of a town you'd find in a leafy part of New England but I suspect its a very pleasant place to live.

Yeah, I can see why lots of people might like it. It’s not exactly a rural village anyway. It’s like an extension of Dorchester. Shame “Green to Grey” wasn’t around to lament this terrible loss of vital green land round Dorchester…

[Tubby Isaacs]

Starmer's doing everything wrong, Brexit Britain is shit, pandering to Reform, unlike Spain. Oh hang on.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... oyment-vox

In Spain, what once seemed impossible is now widespread: the young are turning to the far right
María Ramírez

I'm gloating a bit at the constant need for people to alight on one country where they say they're doing it all right because they like a couple of things about it. It's terrible news though, if these polls are accurate.

I don't think anyone really knows what to do if the (previously) centre right and far right get together. Starmer's "tough but not mad" line might be as good anything. The BTL people have traced the source of the problem- neoliberalism. Doubtless if Sanchez can't recover in the polls, people who praised Spain will forget that they did and the ascent of the right will have soon become "inevitable" because of a couple of different facts they suddenly pick out.

[Youngian]

Start with Tommy Robinson in Tenerife, he doesn't even speak the lingo.

It seems that the younger you are in Spain at the moment, the more likely you are to vote for a party that advocates, among other things, the mass expulsion of immigrants in order to preserve “Spanish identity”

[Tubby Isaacs]

Usual stuff. What the economy needs is money spent on what the Guardian always wants money spent on, instead of "asset holders", whatever that means. There are some easy tax reliefs that can be scrapped, including "capital gains tax reliefs". Which ones? How much do they raise? It all helps, but I can't see much that's going to subsidize utility bills, as the editorial says must happen. I'm old enough to remember when the government tried to stop subsidizing utility bills for lots of people who didn't need it, and there was hell to play.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ld-for-pay

The Guardian view on the IMF’s warning: Britain’s economy runs hot for profits, cold for pay

The only link on profits is to something from June 2023. There's no link to the IMF. There's no link to wages except to say they're rising by a small amount in real terms. There's nothing on reforms that might increase growth in the longer term- as ever, you just redistribute and it all works. And impose a wealth tax.

Labour is fixated with the idea that rising asset values will make Britain properous

Is it?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Here's an explanation for the increased unemployment. Improved productivity. That's probably positive in the longer term. As an aside, every man and his dog has moaned about low paying employers who need bailing out by tax credits and how bad that is. Well, the Government whacked up the minimum wage and put more tax on those employers, and now they moan about unemployment.