Politics Thread!

[gravy]

You need to read the whole sentence again.

I am a strong believer in subsidiarity, which just means doing things at the lowest political level that makes sense.

And does our current approach to housing make sense? No. So we need to do something other than devolve decisions to the local planning level.

That's utterly banal.

"I believe we should do things that make sense"*

You don't strongly believe in subsidiarity, you strongly believe in your own judgement.

* WARNING: defintion of sense wholy subjective, may include nonsense.

[pogo]

How else would you put it? You can look up a formal definition of subsidiarity if you like but I don’t think it would be at all more specific, except it might use “that works” instead of “that makes sense”. It is vague as it‘s a general principal, and the specifics depend on the precise matter under consideration, the existing political and management structures, etc..

Even generally you can identify the benefits of subsidiarity. If decisions are taken closer to the people they affect they can take their particular concerns into account more. You also eliminate the levels of management and coordination needed to take and coordinate decisions nationally. And allowing more outcomes locally lets people discover best practices, something we sometimes seem especially poor at.

It exists also as an antidote to the centralising tendencies of far too many modern governments, whether successive British ones of the EU with it’s principal of “ever closer union”. It’s something the US does more of, with US states having far more independence than UK counties, although they perhaps go too far in some ways.

[VNVObit]

You need to read the whole sentence again.

I am a strong believer in subsidiarity, which just means doing things at the lowest political level that makes sense.

And does our current approach to housing make sense? No. So we need to do something other than devolve decisions to the local planning level.

Do you actually know what decisions are made locally as opposed to centrally (even county or city level)?

[pogo]

Do you actually know what decisions are made locally as opposed to centrally (even county or city level)?

Personally, no. But the planning system is the main impediment to solving the housing crisis, and has been for more than a decade. E.g. from a few days ago:
Building up false hope? Why none of the politicians' vows to deliver more new homes stack up

Industry experts are calling for a greater focus on increasing the supply of new homes – including further relaxing planning laws.

Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of the Home Builders Federation, said: ‘We are still way short of building the number of homes the country needs, and developers are frustrated by the delays preventing a faster increase in output.

‘If we are to increase supply, Government needs to work with the industry to develop policies that will allow housebuilders large and small to deliver.

‘We need a streamlining of the planning system such that it delivers enough land in the right places more quickly.’

(yes it’s a Daily Fail site but This Is Money is editorially separate and quite sensible. It criticises all the parties’ policies here, quite correctly)

[venusian]

Do you actually know what decisions are made locally as opposed to centrally (even county or city level)?

Personally, no. But the planning system is the main impediment to solving the housing crisis, and has been for more than a decade

Is it bollocks.

The main impediment to solving the housing crisis is that building cheap housing is not a profitable enterprise. Or, rather, the opportunity costs of building cheap housing are the greater profit from building expensive housing and the lost paper profit from not holding on to land which is appreciating in value. House builders have to be legally compelled to build affordable housing along with luxury residences, a requirement which they regularly and frequently flout.

One might feel tempted to argue that building expensive houses is good enough because it relieves a little bit of demand in the system and thus reduces prices across the board. But it doesn't work; it isn't working. As with every other form of trickle-down economics, there's a man at the top with a mop.

Given how much of a mess "the market" has made of housing it's hard to see how it will be satisfactorily solved without letting local governments build again. By "mess", I mean a mess for people. For business it's pretty good: there's a great deal of money to be made from the apparently permanent rise in house and land prices.

Also "the planning system" isn't just about not building on fields. It's about planning and building schools, hospitals, roads and utility services sometime decades in advance of full utilisation. Even if they wanted to, you can't allow Houses Corp to build and build and build because they will do just that and then to the surprise of no-one you've created a slum.

[gravy]

How else would you put it?

I wouldn't. At what level a function is best controlled at is dependent on so many things; the function, the current environement and not least what you define as 'best'

Strongly supporting subsidiarity as a general principle is a nonsense because it's a case by case basis. But you believe in an inherent superiority of free markets which is cobblers, again it depends on the what you're trying to achieve and the environment you're trying to achieve it in.

Like Venusian is saying it's the free market that's fucked house building to an extent becuase despite it being needed by the people of this country it's not that profitable.

[pogo]

One might feel tempted to argue that building expensive houses is good enough because it relieves a little bit of demand in the system and thus reduces prices across the board. But it doesn't work; it isn't working. As with every other form of trickle-down economics, there's a man at the top with a mop.

This is nonsense. You cannot claim it isn’t working as no-one is trying it. We are not building lots of houses, expensive or cheap. We are building about half as many as we need just to keep up. So prices keep rising.

And anyway if we really did have a surplus of large expensive houses then people would cope. In fact they have been doing so already in many cities which have a surplus of large houses built by rich merchants a hundred years or more ago. Some get knocked down and redeveloped but many get subdivided, turned into multiple units to make them affordable. This happens in London of course but it also happens in many other cities, including much smaller ones and large towns.

More generally the benefits would as you say “trickle down”, or be widespread. As there aren’t enough houses to go around prices get bid up by better off buyers. The better off buyers pay a bit more, the least well off end up worst off without their own home as the new minimum price excludes them. Building enough homes for everyone would mean they too can afford them – it would benefit them the most. Call it “trickle down” if you like, I prefer to think of it as just doing what’s best for those who need most help with housing.

[tufty]

Thanks for prefixing your post with a three word synopsis, saves us the effort of bothering to ridicule the rest of it.

[Deckard]

Our Bristol mayor has been and is shit tbh, pretty much wound everyone up on transport and parking issues. Its a shame we cant vote the office out.

I haven't noticed it, at all.

Yeah for voting out politicians, but they will not ever allow that, or they'd all be gone in an instant.

You haven't noticed the residents parking zones all over the city ? or those stupid trademark red trousers

[venusian]

Our Bristol mayor has been and is shit tbh, pretty much wound everyone up on transport and parking issues. Its a shame we cant vote the office out.

I haven't noticed it, at all.
Yeah for voting out politicians, but they will not ever allow that, or they'd all be gone in an instant.

You haven't noticed the residents parking zones all over the city ? or those stupid trademark red trousers

A couple of folk I work with live in central Bristol. Their biggest complaint about Ferguson is that he's making it harder (or at least no easier) for them to drive their cars fast around the city centre. From this, I derive the opinion that he must be doing something right.

[pogo]

So Chukka Umunna is out of the running, after briefly looking certain to win. Very odd: he seems to have been surprised by the amount of scrutiny a prospective Labour leader and potential PM gets, but he was around for the last one which was very high profile and dramatic. This one was promising to be a lot less interesting, especially with him being a shoo-in.

Maybe he instead plans to run for London Mayor, use that to its full advantage to promote his brand, putting him in a stronger position to win over the Labour party and the British people. We could even see him running for PM against Boris Johnson, assuming he takes over from Cameron when he as expected steps down.

[Cloudane]

Could do with someone like this

[pogo]

Labour can choose someone from the left to lead them for the next five years and into the next election. If they do they will be handing it to the Tories. History shows they cannot win elections from the left. And it’s probably harder for them now than ever before, under pressure from the SNP in Scotland and UKIP in England. Meanwhile the Tories have claimed much of the centre ground Labour under Blair once occupied, with liberal social policies, progressive tax policies, and being fiscally prudent while looking after core public services.

[gravy]

I think you saw the public's perceptions of where the tories are.

It's certainly not the centre ground. Why do you think it is?

[(o)(o)]

Could do with someone like this

Ah, that was sincere, passionate and brutally honest..

Exactly the sort of qualities one would wwant from an MP and nothing like the drivers of this country

I mean.. firstly ... is this REALLY a cabinet meeting, or is it actually a clip from Lord of the Flies?



This example of table banging is one of the most pathetic scenes I've EVER witnessed in UK politics.

I'm blown away by Cameron's opening speeches. Does ANYBODY believe a SINGLE WORD of that ?

The body language of IDS, May and Grayling..

WATCH THE EYES...