Politics Thread!

[Rhythm]

It's insane that Tory MPs are happily and casually making neo-Nazi talking points at their conference... and, apparently, this is fine?)

It's the National Conservatism conference. Nat Con. Nat C. It's in plain fucking sight and they don't even care

[merman]

It's insane that Tory MPs are happily and casually making neo-Nazi talking points at their conference... and, apparently, this is fine?)

It's the National Conservatism conference. Nat Con. Nat C. It's in plain fucking sight and they don't even care

Scottish Tory Douglas Murray joining in with the daft speeches. To paraphrase, “nationalism isn’t bad, just because they did it badly in Germany once”.

[Rhythm]

Scottish Tory Douglas Murray joining in with the daft speeches. To paraphrase, “nationalism isn’t bad, just because they did it badly in Germany once”.

I saw that one. It's fucking insane.

Starmer showing his full bell-endery this morning. Plans to increase housebuilding (despite record numbers of empty properties) and relax planning permissions around building on green belt, all whilst doing nothing about the skewed ownership of properties in the UK. Fucking awesome.

Unfortunately I think he's been convinced that building more houses is the answer in the same way that people are often convinced that building more roads reduces traffic.

It is so fucking depressing that the choices in the UK boil down to Lab vs Con. Missus and I very much pulling every string we can to see if there's a way we can GTFO

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP*
It is so fucking depressing that the choices in the UK boil down to Lab vs Con. Missus and I very much pulling every string we can to see if there's a way we can GTFO

... if you have any better place to go let me know which one is ..

[zip accident]

In its own thread I wrote:

Aldi and Morrisons did this in synch around my way (how is that not a cartel?), now all Aldi's fruit goes off two days after you've bought it. Morrisons still sort of have a date, but it's m 15 or whatever, whereas Aldi's who hire clever people and don't have dedicated shelf stackers, have totally obfuscated dates on theirs.

However, it has since come to my notice that there is a campaign doing the rounds about us being able to smell off food and not needing sell-by dates at all.

This is cobblers. The reason we buy stuff with long sell by dates is so that it keeps fresh until we need it, what the supermarket owners want is to force us to go to the shops every day and buy small amounts at ridiculously high prices. Have you seen the price of a single pint of milk? it's about half the price of four pints.

This is not a green initiative, it may reduce the waste thrown away by supermarkets, but the overall wastage will increase by a factor of ten times, through households disposing of rotten food, some of which will not have been fit for human consumption when it was bought.

[zip accident]

In its own thread I wrote:

Aldi and Morrisons did this in synch around my way (how is that not a cartel?), now all Aldi's fruit goes off two days after you've bought it. Morrisons still sort of have a date, but it's m 15 or whatever, whereas Aldi's who hire clever people and don't have dedicated shelf stackers, have totally obfuscated dates on theirs.

However, it has since come to my notice that there is a campaign doing the rounds about us being able to smell off food and not needing sell-by dates at all.

This is cobblers. The reason we buy stuff with long sell by dates is so that it keeps fresh until we need it, what the supermarket owners want is to force us to go to the shops every day and buy small amounts at ridiculously high prices. Have you seen the price of a single pint of milk? it's about half the price of four pints.

This is not a green initiative, it may reduce the waste thrown away by supermarkets, but the overall wastage will increase by a factor of ten times, through households disposing of rotten food, some of which will not have been fit for human consumption when it was bought.

Apparently this is old news that is only now being acted upon after being on the books for twelve years, but I still say we wuz robbed and rogered.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... llby-dates

Is saving the supermarkets x millions while costing the consumer 10x millions Tory policy? seems likely. Is it Labour policy? Green policy? Lib-Dem policy?

I mean "sell-by" versus "best before" I don't much care about, but "best before" versus not a word is a very different thing, and that's what the supermarkets are trying on.

[Orava]

Ann Widdecombe: don’t have cheese sandwiches if you can’t afford them

The former Brexit party MEP said there was no “given right” for low food prices, despite being told families “cannot afford to feed their children” and were having to make huge sacrifices as the cost of living crisis deepens.

Widdecombe, who joined the Reform UK party this year, was on BBC’s Politics Live programme when she was asked what she would say to consumers who could not afford to pay for basics such as the ingredients of a cheese sandwich.

“Well then you don’t do the cheese sandwich,” Widdecombe replied. “None of it’s new. We’ve been through this before. The problem is we’ve been decades now without inflation, we’ve come to regard it as some kind of given right.”

Yeah, eat mud you peasants.

[(o)(o)]

Home Office uses executive powers to insert rules that were voted down by parliament into a statutory instrument.

https://twitter.com/georgemonbiot/statu ... __TpkjT55A

Just repeating the above, incase this monumental step toward complete totalitarian rule in the UK went unnoticed...

Video in the tweet.. paywall bypassing link to the inews article below :

"The Government is using a chilling mechanism to sidestep Parliament"

[merman]

Scottish Tory Douglas Murray joining in with the daft speeches. To paraphrase, “nationalism isn’t bad, just because they did it badly in Germany once”.

I saw that one. It's fucking insane.

Starmer showing his full bell-endery this morning. Plans to increase housebuilding (despite record numbers of empty properties) and relax planning permissions around building on green belt, all whilst doing nothing about the skewed ownership of properties in the UK. Fucking awesome.

Unfortunately I think he's been convinced that building more houses is the answer in the same way that people are often convinced that building more roads reduces traffic.

It is so fucking depressing that the choices in the UK boil down to Lab vs Con. Missus and I very much pulling every string we can to see if there's a way we can GTFO

Building on green belt is PART of the Labour strategy. They are also looking at a range of measures, including reversing the sell-off of housing association stock.

[KlaxonCow]

And you can be sure that, despite wanting all this house building, they won't bother updating building regulations to mandate insulation, solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, etc. for all new builds.

Stuff that, you know, costs very little in comparison to the overall cost of the house, but will net great savings for its owners, reduce carbon emissions, reduce grid demand, improve energy security, stave off any repeat of this "cost of living crisis", will greatly help to actually meeting our net zero goals, etc..

(Hmm, I wonder. I did point out that, looking at election results (not just in the UK, but in the US, Canada, Australia, etc.), you get the phenomenon that urban areas vote left and rural areas vote right... so I suggested, not altogether seriously, that when Labour gets power next, it should go hog wild on an urbanisation programme, to lock its win in place. I didn't actually expect this to genuinely become Labour policy. But it seems they've been looking at those election maps too.)

[Rhythm]

Building on green belt is PART of the Labour strategy.

I know, and it's fucking sickening. They can point their fingers at "NIMBYs" all they like but more houses being built isn't the answer to anything except trying to keep GDP at a certain level.

[zip accident]

Starmer showing his full bell-endery this morning. Plans to increase housebuilding (despite record numbers of empty properties) and relax planning permissions around building on green belt, all whilst doing nothing about the skewed ownership of properties in the UK. Fucking awesome.

If there is a lot of empty housing, why is there no tax on empty houses? or are theu just empty while people move and that's taking longer? I don't have strong opinions on the green belt (it is nice to live in, if you can afford it).

[KlaxonCow]

If there is a lot of empty housing, why is there no tax on empty houses?

Because rich people - with second homes, that are often empty for long periods - are those who'd get clobbered by it.

(And, actually, as I'll mention below, there is exactly such a tax beyond England.)

or are theu just empty while people move and that's taking longer?

Which could easily be legislated for.

Tax 'em... but not for, say, the first six months. So temporarily empty houses, due to people moving, would avoid the tax. But those who're sitting on empty second homes pay for their rich privilege, as they are distorting the market / pricing locals out of their community.


Westminster has been criticising the Welsh government, because they have actually introduced a "empty / second homes tax". Where local councils can "charge a premium of up to 100% of the standard rate of council tax on long-term empty dwellings and dwellings occupied periodically (more commonly referred to as second homes) in their areas. From 1 April 2023, the maximum level at which local authorities can set council tax premiums will increase to 300%.".

There is, of course, also an added dimension in Wales, as they also want to keep locals in the community for the preservation of Welsh-speaking communities - as a lot of them have been gutted out by (mostly English) immigration, doing that whole "Escape to the Country" thing. With too much immigration (from wherever), English becomes the natural "Lingua Franca", of course - even the Welsh speakers default to English to be understood by all - and this undermines Welsh language preservation efforts.

It's quite possible. The Welsh government are doing it, much to the annoyance of Tories at Westminster. Charge more council tax on empty and second homes.

But, you know, most of those owning those second homes, or being landlords sitting on empty homes, or developers sitting on empty land, are the politicians themselves or their rich mates.

Yeah, I included developers sitting on empty land because there's a tremendous amount of that going on. The logic is pretty simple. If they build too many houses, then they undermine the price and, thus, make less profit. Also, other developers building those houses in their place would do the same to housing costs.

So they buy up land, submit an application to build a housing estate there... and then sit around doing fuck all for the next, ooh, 10 years. They deliberately throttle the supply and block development, to keep the prices up. It's not just empty homes. It's empty land on which homes could be built (lots of "brown field" sites, that if we could unlock them all, we wouldn't even need to consider "green field" for a very long time). Or, indeed, a lot of empty buildings you see around the place are actually owned by developers already - with plans to convert them into flats or whatever - but they'll sit on them for decades, as they don't want to undermine their own profits by providing too much supply.

I've noted it before. But most modern problems - housing, climate change, unemployment, etc. - boils down to the simple fact that this planet has far too many people on it.

[Harlequin]

There is, of course, also an added dimension in Wales, as they also want to keep locals in the community for the preservation of Welsh-speaking communities - as a lot of them have been gutted out by (mostly English) immigration, doing that whole "Escape to the Country" thing. With too much immigration (from wherever), English becomes the natural "Lingua Franca", of course - even the Welsh speakers default to English to be understood by all - and this undermines Welsh language preservation efforts.

Paying extra council tax seems preferable to the solution employed at the turn of the nineteen-eighties.

[Harlequin]

Scottish Tory Douglas Murray joining in with the daft speeches. To paraphrase, “nationalism isn’t bad, just because they did it badly in Germany once”.

Murray is apparently not Scottish but homosexual. I know how easy it can be to get the two confused. I have also failed to ascertain if he is a member of any political party whatsoever.