Politics Thread!

[F-ZeroOne]

Thats the one! Blowy soundy thing!

[PFVA]

And RN is third.
This has been a good week.

third, but with nearly 40% of votes cast. There's no cause for celebration.

I wasn't exactly celebrating.
I was relieved. Our media had been saying all week that most likely the RN would be first.

[KlaxonCow]

One thing Labour really ought to do, with its house building pledge, is finally fix the building regulations.

So that, at a minimum, new builds must reach a certain level of insulation and energy efficiency.

Ideally, were I "King of the World", I'd make the standards insist on "Passivhaus" levels; A German-originating standard where "passive" is the keyword. The idea being that with good insulation, solar, heat pumps and so forth, you can create a house that's passively self-sufficient. You don't actively do anything. The house just retains heat, with solar powering a heat pump to raise / lower the heat (as heat pumps can work in both directions and cool in Summer too, though make sure you look for that feature before buying, because though heat pumps are, in theory, reversible, some models don't actually do it - but, indeed, if everyone purchasing a heat pump shuns the ones that don't work both ways, that can steer the shit models out of the market).



Yes, retrofitting UK housing stock to that kind of level is one heck of a project for a government to take on. But new builds are completely different - just change the building regs to insist upon it, and then they're all built that way from the ground up. It's all designed that way from the off.

Considering house prices, the costs of exterior wall insulation and solar really is a drop in the ocean to the overall price. And if ALL new builds have to be built to such standards, then the prices for insulation, solar, batteries and heat pumps will drop like a rock - to the benefit of everyone, so those retrofits on existing houses get cheaper - from the "economies of scale".

Building developers will, of course, moan at extra stuff that cuts into their corner-cutting profiteering. But, you know, fuck 'em. I mean, they're not a sector where you can believe any pleas of poverty, nor that - with this cross-party mission to increase house building, as every party promised it - can they plead a lack of work ahead of them. Nah, fuck 'em. The taxpayer is actually going to fund a boom in house building that'll see them sitting pretty for a long while... the minor price for that is, sorry, none of your cheap shit. Build proper homes to the insulation and clean energy standards of today (which we know is 100% perfectly do-able, as it is being done here and there - but it is the job of a government to regulate to make sure that they ALL do what they're supposed to).

So, basically, not just a million new homes. But a million new homes that cost next-to-nothing to heat, cool and maintain. Built that way from the ground up. Actually nice homes to live in - passively comfortable all year round - with built-in vastly cheaper bills.

That housing developments like this aren't one-off social enterprise "experiments", but simply what all new housing, at a minimum, looks like:



Indeed, when folks talk about "affordable homes", they're typically only thinking of the up-front price of buying the house. But these are also "affordable homes" in the other sense - much more affordable to run, affordable energy bills, etc..

With everyone's energy bills going up in the cost of living crisis, everyone got a taste of what, unfortunately, those at the bottom perpetually struggle with. "Affordable homes" should mean "affordable" in both senses - it's not just getting somewhere to live, or your foot on the housing ladder, it's being able to actually survive month-to-month once you're there. Like, reductio ad absurdum: There'd really be not much point selling homes for £1 each... if their new residents have to give them up by the end of the month, as they just can't afford the bills on the place. Like, "affordable" in a holistic sense - not just buying, but keeping.

Now that he doesn't have to worry about Murdoch sinking his election campaign, could Labour please reverse the watering down of their "green prosperity plan" because that really is where all the economic growth they're looking for is going to be coming from. Go forth boldly, Sir Keir. Get Keynesian on the infrastructure and "New Deal" us back to not being a poor basketcase country anymore.

[tufty]

Our media had been saying all week that most likely the RN would be first.

So had ours.

Thing is, the RN haven't lost yet. The government is formed by the group with the most seats, and a group is not necessarily a party. As it stands, NFP (teh socialists) have 180 seats, Ensemble (Macron's lot) have 159, RN (racist nutbags) have 142 and LR (the normally "sensible" right wing) have 39 seats. And there's a few others. To have a majority, you need to control 289 seats. So any government will, by necessity, be a coalition if they want to actually achieve anything.

The most logical would be either NFP + Ensemble or Ensemble + LR + some oddballs. the problem here is that a large part of the NFP, particularly those from La France Insoumise want nothing to do with Macron's lot, and vice versa, so that almost knocks out that option. Likewise, On the right there are many who are closer to the RN than Ensemble, so that articular coalition might be out of the water. Not to mention that the LR party itself is in total disarray after the leader, Eric Ciotti, unilaterally aligned himself with the RN before the election, was kicked out of the party, then reinstated after a court case decided it was not legal to kick him out. That's a fight over party funds mostly, but the party itself is in tatters.

the upshot is that any government will be a minority one, meaning it will have a really hard time getting anything done. More fuel for the far right to say "see, the left can't do anything", and we'll end up with a nazi government and leader sooner than you might think.

the situation is utterly fucked.

[F-ZeroOne]

Maybe you should have concentrated on stopping an actual virus, eh, Suella?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... -braverman

[Mat]

Christ Cruella.
I mean, yes, I'm aware that Reform got a worrying amount of votes this time around, but still:
Who, when they lose because they're too right wing, doubles down and goes even FURTHER right?

[zip accident]

Who, when they lose because they're too right wing, doubles down and goes even FURTHER right?

It happens on the right and the left, the typical reaction of extremists to failure is "We must become more extreme".

[tufty]

I'm aware that Reform got a worrying amount of votes this time around, but still:

It was reform that gave the victory to Labour by splitting the right wing vote The conservatives were expecting to get spanked by Labour voters, but Labour's vote share didn't rise really, they got less votes than they had under Corbyn. If you look at it that way, the people who punished the tories for being useless were Reform voters, the people on the extreme right - that's who needs appeasing. This perhaps doesn't take into account the number of more moderate voters you're going to lose, but it's a way of seeing things.

[zip accident]

What was wrong with Rates?

I didn't umderstand them and I don't like the poll tax which replaced them.

The idea of a tax on buildings even when they are empty seems a good one.

[Harlequin]

What was wrong with Rates?

I didn't umderstand them and I don't like the poll tax which replaced them.

I think the Council Tax which replaced the poll tax is supposed to be sort of conceptually similar to the old Rates.

[zip accident]

What was wrong with Rates?

I didn't umderstand them and I don't like the poll tax which replaced them.

I think the Council Tax which replaced the poll tax is supposed to be sort of conceptually similar to the old Rates.

I'm not sure. The council Tax is, from last year, being collected (in Bristol, I dunno whether this is general) from tennants, per tennant. That's not per building or per room so far as I know, so it's effectively still a poll (i.e. head) tax.

[Dio]

In HMOs, yes. In most houses, no.

[zip accident]

In HMOs, yes. In most houses, no.

I'm currently in a HMO, there are five single tennancies. It used to be the Landlord paid the Council tax, that changed last year, which is an effective rent increase.

It seems that a tax on buildings, particularly empty ones, might improve the supply of housing, but I don't know what the gotchas are.

[Dio]

If I was in charge, I'd be looking at 50-100% CGT on all homes that aren't the owner's primary and permanent place of residence. That would reduce the value of homes as an investment vehicle.

If I was feeling really commie, I'd add 50% CGT even to primary residences.

[skab]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/r2K67n0tI5k?feature=share

Erm. National anthems shared, A bit bit erm, controversial.

Huh? Shared with who? Imperial Austria?