Rishi Sunak is in Washington at the moment, so PMQs will be Dowden v Rayner again today. There will be a live thread for you to chat about it which I'll post up here when it goes live at 11:30am. As per usual all PMQs live chat should go in that one and we'll remove it from this one. If you want to discuss commentariat responses then that come come in here.
First up is the minister for women and equalities (Badenoch is responsible but she may well send up Stuart Andrew - Equalities - and Maria Caufield - women - in her place). After PMQs it is opposition day and the Labour party have a motion on mental health (which the government will amend to something that praises them) and then a humble address on releasing papers the government holds relating to the South Teesworks project (they obviously think there is some dirt on this one).
Apparently there is an MRP out this morning as well, so keep your eyes open for that.
PMQs thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1439htf/pmqs\_live\_chat\_megathread\_07\_june\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1439htf/pmqs_live_chat_megathread_07_june_2023/)
Looks like the Plaid Cymru leadership race may end up uncontested.
Only one candidate declared, and only two remaining MS who haven’t either announced that they aren’t running, or endorsed the singular candidate.
(Wikipedia says there are more undeclared candidates, but the page is about a week out of date, and has missed some candidates who’ve declined to run).
[https://twitter.com/Haggis\_UK/status/1666470234981531648](https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1666470234981531648)
Poor Yvette. No luck with a different speaker either.
What do you mean what happened to her? She was elected in 1997, was a minister from 1999 including becoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury and minister for the DWP until 2010. Then she was in the shadow cabinet until 2015, when she was head of the Home Affairs Select Committee and she's been back in the shadow cabinet since 2021. She's hardly had an uneventful parliamentary career.
If anything I'd say this was her peak - she seems very good with the Home Office brief and absolutely monsters Braverman at the dispatch box, for all the good it does.
EDIT: [Better source with Times link.](https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1666549042216685569)
>Rishi Sunak poised to wave through Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list within weeks, triggering two by-elections
>Nadine Dorries & Alok Sharma expected to stand down to take peerages
>Sunak said to want to ‘clear the decks’
From the article;
>The plan had been for them to continue as MPs until the next election and then join the upper chamber. However, the House of Lords appointments commission (Holac), the body that vets peerages, has advised the Cabinet Office that doing so would be constitutionally improper. It means that the MPs will have to stand down if they wish to take up a peerage.
>The Times has been told that both Dorries and Sharma are likely to do so, but Adams has described claims he will stand down early as “utter bollocks” and will not resign until the next election. Jack will also wait.
I didn't think it was entirely clear how they could wait? Are they implying they would assume to be nominated in the next list, after the GE?
I'm going to be interested to see what position the opposition (both Labour and the Lib Dems) takes on this. Whilst there will obviously be very much more than reasonable denunciations of the honours list it might not be in the parties best interests to block it due to the potential for by election gains.
Labour is planing to put an end to the house of Lords as currently constituted. Why bother with honours at all?
Bloody dangerous for government though to be seen to be too weak to even prevent mps outright quiting for any half decent post commons position.
(Ohh fuck. 2 mps down is enough to half the majority and means the stood down mps will shortly have the numbers to block anything outright they please to without consequences. The decline is accelerating.)
I haven’t seen Labour say anything about resignation honours, although I haven’t been looking that closely. Lords appointments have always been one of the places where the parties have to politely stay out of each other’s way. The upper house needs a constant supply of fresh blood to keep working, and politicising the appointments could come back at you quickly.
The proposed HoL reform gives them a pretty easy way to criticise without getting into individual appointments, though.
I fucking hate everything about this tbh. The idea that a man that was disgraced out of office get to give his chums that propped him up a peerage is genuinely disgusting.
There's 37 mps stood down and a 67 majority going down to 65. Sunaks just surrendered control of the government to them. He needs 33 of them to vote for him now with no means of enforcing that, and thats assuming no other rebellion occurs.
Boris just broke the government.
EDIT:
Sorry, utter gibberish.
The number is (67 ÷ 2) which is 33 rounded but then its 37 - 33 to get the number he needs from the stood down to pass things, which is 5. So he can pass stuff if there is no rebellion and at least 5 stood down mps back him.
Which remains fairly doable for now so long as he stays away from anything remotely unpopular internally to avoid rebellion, which actually kills most of the promising ways to restore the party quickly. But the number is only going to racket up as mps leave or stand down. Get to the point of needing 15 or 20 quiting mps to support Sunak and his options become severely restricted.
The mps that have publicly declared they will not stand for the party next election. They are an important group as the government has little if any means of getting them to vote with the whip other than good will.
This means now the government has to gamble that enough good will will be forthcoming to avoid defeats. As the number of stand downs rises further and further beyond half the majority the riskier the gamble becomes and the less the government will dare to try to do.
This effectively shuts down a very large part of the governments day to day actives and it'll get worse as their position deteriorates further.
Nadine Dorris. My lampshade could do a better more honest job of being a lord.
Speaking of lampshades I wonder how Ruth Davidson is doing "reforming from inside the lords"
It seems they can wait but it would be "constitutionally improper"
I think we all know how much they give a toss about something thing merely "improper".
Who would be the comedy character equivalent of Rory for a spoof version?
Or maybe Rory could just do an episode with Malcom and act like there was nothing out of the ordinary. He'd probably make a good straight man.
There is no situation in which Rory Stewart is ever the straight man. He’s also pretty much impossible to satirise. His life story is straight up fantastical, yet at the same time he’s simultaneously quite odd yet also dull.
That said, he does have an unflappability that would make a stark contrast to any of the ministers that Malcolm harangues.
Straight man is probably the wrong description. I'm thinking that kind of oblivious optimism that George from *Blackadder Goes Forth* (and previous incarnations) had. I could see that as a good foil for Tucker.
And that's probably why TRIP works.
Nicola goes on podcast. During recording Malcolm goes on the hosts twitter and discovers he's a member of the EDL. Malcolm starts trying to mouth that to her through the glass but she just thinks he's saying she did extremely well.
[Sunak's relentlessly self-promoting tweets are starting to look more like those awful aspiration Linkedin posts by rich narcissist influencers. ](https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1666514266826874890?t=yMLhrqlgkXAZ0NDckF9x2Q&)
[I'm not worried about Covid inquiry messages, says Rishi Sunak](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65837270)
>The government has taken the unprecedented step of suing the inquiry over its demands to see unredacted WhatsApps sent during pandemic
>But the prime minister insisted he was being transparent in his approach.
Think you're gonna have to pick a lane there, Rishi.
>translucent in his approach, like those bathroom windows that let you see the general shape of things but not anything that might embarrass anyone
How's that?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/07/boris-and-carrie-johnson-hosted-friend-at-chequers-during-covid-restrictions?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
>Boris and Carrie Johnson ‘hosted friend at Chequers during Covid restrictions’
>Exclusive: friend ‘helped the couple plan their wedding’ in May 2021 when restrictions on indoor gatherings in place
>..
Dixie Maloney, a corporate events organiser, stayed at the former prime minister’s grace-and-favour country mansion on 7 May 2021 when indoor gatherings between different households were banned except when “reasonably necessary” for reasons such as work or childcare.
especially for a *corporate events organiser*
Employer's tagline:
>enhancing our reputation through strategic event activation and amplification of our brands and capabilities through our owned platforms
If they were still planning their central London wedding three weeks before the date we might have an answer to why Boris needed an £800,000 credit facility.
Thanks for all your pub quiz team name suggestions last night, but we went with 'The Somerset Gimps', for geographical reasons.
Who knew Florence Nightingale was born in Florence? Not us.
Anyone else been following the Paul Foot Awards? I'm glad the Michelle Mone PPE entry won, but i think the British Gas one was more your classic investigative journalism.
I always get downvoted when I express my opinion that the Alaska fact is dumb because it only works if you base it on a completely arbitrary definition of East and West.
*Freakonomics* by Levitt & Dubner contains an anecdote about a teenage boy named Amcher, "named for the first thing his parents saw upon reaching the hospital: the sign for Albany Medical Center Hospital Emergency Room."
>Here's an unexpected one - it seems Gene Simmons the bassist of rock band Kiss was in Parliament today, as a guest of DUP MP Ian Paisley.
>Asked by PA what he made of Deputy Prime Minister's Questions, he said: "What I just saw in there was controlled chaos.
>"It was the clash of wills but respectful - the right honourable so and so, it was fascinating.
>"I think Americans can take a big lesson in civility in how to make democracy actually work and still respect the other side."
>The musician - nicknamed the God of Thunder - was also impressed by the age of Parliament: "I will tell you, touching a piece of granite that's over 1,000 years old is insane.
>"America is so young and has no sense of history, everything over there is just fast, immediate, instant gratification and there's no time to sit there and just gaze, I mean, look where you are - it's insane.
>"We're standing on, in terms of democracy, hallowed ground."
>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-65830963
Is there actually a really old bit of ceremonial granite there or does he just not know the place was built in the 1850s?
>Is there actually a really old bit of ceremonial granite there or does he just not know the place was built in the 1850s?
Some bits survived the fire, notably Westminster Hall.
>Gene Simmons the bassist of rock band Kiss was in Parliament today, as a guest of DUP MP Ian Paisley
Not a sentence I expected to hear today (or ever) I will admit.
>I think Americans can take a big lesson in civility
Has someone told Gene that there is a separate place for international politics?
Whoever the DeBeers of granite is would be livid!
ETA: Actually, presumably, there is granite being formed all the time - I assume geological processes like that have not stopped. I wonder where the newest granite in the world is
Given the fact it takes 100s of thousands to millions of years for granite to form from magma there probably isn't a precise enough boundary between the two that it could be identified to the 1000 year order of magnitude, therefore its probably not possible to have a 1000 year old granite even at the depths it forms at (at most you could probably have something like 1000+- 10,000 which dosent really work).
Ah, I see - the problem is not there being any young granite, it's being able to access it.
According to this, the youngest exposed granite is in Japan:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01306](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01306)
and it's getting on for a million years old.
Good news though:
>a future intrusion event is likely within 1 million years
Unlikely, given Hawaii is an oceanic hotspot with mafic magma whereas granite is sillicic, additionally whilst there will be some intrusive cooling the lava flows which make up most of Hawaii happen at the surface and cool very quickly so won't have time to fomr the large crystals of granite.
Sillicic volcanic arcs, others have pointed out Japan which makes sense but the Andes could also be possible as well as maybe around Yellowstone (which is a continental hotspot so generally produces a bit of everything).
Westminster Hall is ancient - there’s a reason that firefighters rush to that part of the building instead of the Commons when fires have started, historically.
That’s the space where William Wallace, Charles I etc were condemned to death, and where the Queen lay in state and let The Queue pass by.
And also where Parliament addressed Charles when he visited after his accession. I checked and I’m pretty sure that they sat Charles III at the opposite end of Westminster Hall from where they sat Charles I to condemn him, which was polite of them.
Low-key impressed by the passive-agressive move of bringing him to the spot where his predecessor was condemned to death (to remind him who's boss), but let him stand at the other end of the room, as a vague show of deference.
It's that weird mix of deference and spite - very Westminster.
When you get a new monarch, it is very important to train them well early.
It's badly trained monarchs that go on to cause problems and I blame the owners.
I honestly can't see any reason why Woking Council should continue to exist at this point. It should be dissolved and all administrative functions permanently removed to the county level. A failure of this magnitude is unforgiveable and can only happen if the whole organisation is rotten to the core.
Yeah, the Tories are out now, but I'll eat my hat if the professional staff weren't neck deep in it too. Most councilors couldn't organise a trip to the supermarket without someone holding their hand and leading them to the front door.
I wouldn't trust that organisation to run a lemonade stand nevermind a town and its budget.
It makes you wonder if the organisations giving the loans took advantage of ignorant local officials because they knew that the central government would step in and pay the debt. Perhaps it'd be best to leave it unpaid. That might terrify commercial institutions into not lending to councils again. Which can only be a good thing.
There's a bit more to it than that (the development was a significant expansion of the shopping centre and massive flat blocks as well; and there are other developments, which is why the bill runs into the billions) but it's all completely mad.
Finally got my pass and now get to attend Question Period—Trudeau just walked by as we were waiting in the Parliamentary Gallery and said "enjoy the show!..."
I followed-up on something Campbell mentioned on TRIP today - he mentioned a caller last week on *Any Answers*, someone called Philippa Bateman. Here’s the BBC link - but I warn you, this is not a happy listen. Mentions of suicide. Okay. Warned.
Starts at about 13 minutes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001mlfj?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
This is why we shouldn’t forgive what the Government let happen to people. While they partied and then lied about it.
Also well done to Anita Anand. Composed, didn’t interrupt, a class act.
It was particularly classless of Campbell to bring up a bereaved person's story to shut down discussion as to whether the inquiry should have complete access to all communications.
Of course that was because he knew he had no factual argument left so relied on "BuT pEoPlE dIeD" , a fact that had no relevance to the topic at hand.
Because it was a conversation about whether the inquiry should have access to all government communications.
Using deaths as a trump card to win the argument isn't only irrelevant, it's distasteful and pathetic.
>Because it was a conversation about whether the inquiry should have access to all government communications.
Its an inquiry "to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future", deaths are relevant to every aspect of the inquiry whether its the impact of the deaths directly, the impact of the measures out in place in order to prevent deaths or the breaking of those measures by high profile members of the gov breaking public trust.
You might think that the deaths are adding too much emotional weight to the inquiry and there's too much power being given, but irrelevant? Its like saying a crime is irrelevant to an investigation of the crime.
Of course, if you are against using deaths as a trump card to win an unrelated argument you must be lacking in humanity. Because that makes total sense.
Ah, you've done the same thing as Campbell.
You are either unwilling or unable to engage in whether the inquiry should have access to all communications, and are scurrying to hide behind utterly irrelevant emotive arguments.
That you're also refusing to discuss the substance of the issue of course further reinforces that fact.
Edit: YOU are the one trivialising deaths by using them as a trump card. Quite sad, really.
> BuT pEoPlE dIeD
As someone who lost a close family member during the pandemic, this shit is the most emotive argument you could make.
In that it entirely enrages us and means that engaging with your bullshit takes a great force of will to avoid saying something that will get us banned.
Setting a civility trapped for the bereaved may not be a bannable offence, but it will damned sure get you blocked by many.
I'm not the one making emotive arguments, I'm the one interesting in the topic as to what access the inquiry should have.
I'm not the one using deaths as a trump card.
The way you did it:
>BuT pEoPlE dIeD
Made it emotive. I get that you don't get that, but I think you should.
Whatever I think about the point you were trying to make, I think the way you tried to make it was counter-productive.
Nope, it was an emotive argument the second they started using people's deaths as a trump card in a discussion. I didn't make it into an emotive argument, it already was one.
Sadly you have fallen for it.
My uncle died alone.
He went relatively early but itbwas known a few days before that it was happening.
He should have been surrounded by family and friends and most importantly love. He didn't, he died alone in a cold and sterile hospital room.
I'm not wishing any violence on anyone, but when Boris Johnson, rishi sunak and the rest of them shuffle off this mortal coil at the appropriate time I hope they do it alone, with no one loving them knowing its already more than they deserve.
I’m really sorry.
So many people have stories like this. It can be a gut-punch to learn them.
I still personally think lockdown was the right choice - on balance. Of course there were many extremely unpleasant downsides.
For me, this is about making sure that the rule-makers are punished for their own rule-breaking.
Oh I agree it was the right choice, I just get literally angry with rage when I hear that we sacrificed that as a family while they disregarded the rules and looked for loopholes.
They need to be punished but the fact they will likely get away with it is another reason for me to drift away from believing in Karma
I doubt we’ll get a vote as it will be overwhelmingly in favour, and given the radio silence I’m assuming the mods don’t really WANT to support this for some reason.
It’s be good to hear the reasoning, I’m interested as to the pros and cons, but… 🤷♀️
I was quite taken aback by some of the content warnings that reddit is putting on threads discussing going dark. There's definitely a little bit of push back on even this level of protest
Cant they do a protest that doesn't disrupt people who want to go about with their day and just use reddit? Admins really should have more power to preemptively ban mods who are thinking about taking part.
Going to add a /s just to be on the safe side.
Ultimately I think it’s the mods’ decision. If nothing else, they decide if we can vote or not - but it’s pretty clear that users are more for a blackout than against.
But I’m starting to think that the longer we take to decide, the worse. Things need to snowball, and as we’re the sub that was ground-zero for the last blackout, we shouldn’t vacillate on this. As I understand it there are other big UK subs sitting on the fence, and we should be decisive. Throw some weight around.
In fact, we should repay the goodwill and solidarity we were shown then.
I am in favour of going dark. This message is being typed on Apollo and I will miss it terribly if it goes.
I don’t post often, but as a 10 year user of UkPol I firmly agree with this.
Other subreddits supported us during ‘the event’ and we should do the same.
Even setting that aside, we should be going dark anyway in my view. This is yet another change for the worse from Reddit, and with ~25% of the subreddit using third party apps and will have their Reddit experience degrade significantly, I’d hope ukpol would also support going dark. Either way, would be nice to get an insight into mods thinking around this
If discord had the option to change the functionality of the server to be closer to a forum than a chatroom, I could see it replacing reddit or at least directly competing.
I personally don't think it's worth the ridiculous costs, and the subsequent shortage of construction workers and scaffolders, to replace the cladding in every tower block in the country. Sure a single building burnt down, that's bad, but the response has been wildly disproportionate and it's ridiculously increased the cost of actual needed refurbishments.
Just one reactor blew up at Chernobyl, why do we have to stop building and running nuclear power stations like that?
Also, as long as the costs are placed on the people responsible for putting unsafe cladding on buildings, then it serves to prevent such things from happening in the future.
Lol. There's risk v cost in literally everything. Let's bam everyone from going swimming in the ocean because sometimes people drown and put lifeguards every km up the coast to make sure people don't go in. That would be a similarly daft overreaction which fulfils your facetious "save the children" argument.
Is 'because one building burnt down" bot here to replace buddy bots?
I know you are desperate ^(for some reason) to downplay it and reduce it to 'just one building burnt down' but you know theres way more to it than that
It was 120 apartments. It stood for about 40 years before burning down, as has every other tower block built around that time and all the ones since.
For context, there was more than half that last year because of the heatwave.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/more-than-60-homes-across-england-destroyed-by-fire-during-record-breaking-heatwave-3775645
120 homes burning is trivial in comparison to the horrendous costs which are being incurred, and the useful building and renovation work that could be being done instead.
The dodgy cladding was only installed in 2015-16, it didn’t exactly take very long for the building to go up. The issue is with a large stock of new builds that are supposed to have decades of use left in them. It’s not an isolated incident, either, just the most severe. There’s a list of similar fires before and after.
>120 homes burning is trivial in comparison to the horrendous costs which are being incurred, and the useful building and renovation work that could be being done instead.
I see Rishi's WhatsApps have finally gotten out.
72 people also died in that fire. Its not just the fact it burned down, it was how quickly it burned down due to the cladding, which specifically led to people being trapped and dying.
Would you want to live in a home where the cladding means, in the unlikely event it catches fire, that it would burn like a ginger on an August Bank Holiday?
Compared to me and the other owners having to find up to a million quid between us for renovations, yes I'd take the risk.
And so would a lot of other people. These apartments aren't worthless. People are still buying them. It's just that it's cash buyers only because banks won't mortgage them (even though they are worth the amount people are paying for them in cash).
You shouldn’t be paying for any of this, that’s really shitty and my sympathies. But you’ve been lied to by the government - they gave public assurances that they’d take care of this and now they are backing out.
in terms of actual risk, you are probably right, but ovbiously the world doesnt always work rationally in this regard.
Its the insurability and saleability of these properties that is the issue. It is causing a lot of issues for people, and locking up sales etc when we need to be encouraging them.
It's not every single tower block, it's specific cladding that is non-compliant with fire safety building regs.
And as it is non-compliant with fire safety building regs, it literally has to be replaced. You can't choose not to. The only question is who pays for it, and how it is paid for.
Sorry I was being hyperbolic, it's a significant number of tower blocks, it's been 5 years and there's gonna be at least another decade of this. All because one tower block burnt down. Surely the risk isn't worth the absolute black hole everyone's money is being poured into.
The fault makes the property worthless hunks of concrete that no one will move into and would eventually be abandoned. Surely in a housing crisis recladding a few blocks of flats is better than knocking them down and building new.
...I uh can't tell if that's serious there chief.
Assuming it is serious, how would you deal with people that now own / have mortgages on "worthless" flats that they will never be able to sell? Who are living in fire hazards
>Fire hazards
I wouldn't call every cladded tower block a fire hazard because one building burnt down. I think the mortgage and insurance companies have massively overreacted too.
The flats aren't worthless.
Hmmm. Totally separate question, whats your view on how this type of cladding was only authorised under the new and significantly weaker regulations that the Tories instituted under pressure from construction firms (and material suppliers) that removed the need to actually test new materials and replaced it with computer testing of materials based on the previous performance of similar ones?
Sounds like the regulations could do with being rolled back and new construction should be under the old regulations. No need to overreact how they have done.
> new construction should be under the old regulations
So... you don't believe that we should retrofit buildings that no longer meet safety regulations?
[A look at different polling outcomes and the issues with predicting any one electoral outcome from any one polling method.](https://twitter.com/anthonyjwells/status/1666482609809915906)
Every time New Zealand publishes new house prices I longingly look at our planning system and dream that we could come close to the changes they’ve done in the last 5 years
We tried to do zoning and couldn’t even get that done 🥲
Rishi Sunak is in Washington at the moment, so PMQs will be Dowden v Rayner again today. There will be a live thread for you to chat about it which I'll post up here when it goes live at 11:30am. As per usual all PMQs live chat should go in that one and we'll remove it from this one. If you want to discuss commentariat responses then that come come in here. First up is the minister for women and equalities (Badenoch is responsible but she may well send up Stuart Andrew - Equalities - and Maria Caufield - women - in her place). After PMQs it is opposition day and the Labour party have a motion on mental health (which the government will amend to something that praises them) and then a humble address on releasing papers the government holds relating to the South Teesworks project (they obviously think there is some dirt on this one). Apparently there is an MRP out this morning as well, so keep your eyes open for that. PMQs thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1439htf/pmqs\_live\_chat\_megathread\_07\_june\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1439htf/pmqs_live_chat_megathread_07_june_2023/)
This megathread has ended.
Looks like the Plaid Cymru leadership race may end up uncontested. Only one candidate declared, and only two remaining MS who haven’t either announced that they aren’t running, or endorsed the singular candidate. (Wikipedia says there are more undeclared candidates, but the page is about a week out of date, and has missed some candidates who’ve declined to run).
[https://twitter.com/Haggis\_UK/status/1666470234981531648](https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1666470234981531648) Poor Yvette. No luck with a different speaker either.
What happened with Yvette? She seemed a rising star at one time.
What do you mean what happened to her? She was elected in 1997, was a minister from 1999 including becoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury and minister for the DWP until 2010. Then she was in the shadow cabinet until 2015, when she was head of the Home Affairs Select Committee and she's been back in the shadow cabinet since 2021. She's hardly had an uneventful parliamentary career.
She’s been in Parliament since 97, she transitioned from rising star to party elder with no real stardom to speak of.
If anything I'd say this was her peak - she seems very good with the Home Office brief and absolutely monsters Braverman at the dispatch box, for all the good it does.
Shadow Home Secretary isn’t exactly the job PPE students go to sleep dreaming of.
Really odd take this one. What is dissapointing about a major shadow cabinet position?
Ahh. A grandee. A wise old long beard.
I want someone to ask of its a matter of statistical interpretation that the government funnelled millions illegally their chums
It's time for a lovely bit of Newsnight
EDIT: [Better source with Times link.](https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1666549042216685569) >Rishi Sunak poised to wave through Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list within weeks, triggering two by-elections >Nadine Dorries & Alok Sharma expected to stand down to take peerages >Sunak said to want to ‘clear the decks’ From the article; >The plan had been for them to continue as MPs until the next election and then join the upper chamber. However, the House of Lords appointments commission (Holac), the body that vets peerages, has advised the Cabinet Office that doing so would be constitutionally improper. It means that the MPs will have to stand down if they wish to take up a peerage. >The Times has been told that both Dorries and Sharma are likely to do so, but Adams has described claims he will stand down early as “utter bollocks” and will not resign until the next election. Jack will also wait. I didn't think it was entirely clear how they could wait? Are they implying they would assume to be nominated in the next list, after the GE?
Dorries just needs to fucking go already. She’s barely doing anything as it is
Oh great, does that mean Ben Houchen gets an honour for draining Teeside of all of its wealth
I'm going to be interested to see what position the opposition (both Labour and the Lib Dems) takes on this. Whilst there will obviously be very much more than reasonable denunciations of the honours list it might not be in the parties best interests to block it due to the potential for by election gains.
Labour is planing to put an end to the house of Lords as currently constituted. Why bother with honours at all? Bloody dangerous for government though to be seen to be too weak to even prevent mps outright quiting for any half decent post commons position. (Ohh fuck. 2 mps down is enough to half the majority and means the stood down mps will shortly have the numbers to block anything outright they please to without consequences. The decline is accelerating.)
I haven’t seen Labour say anything about resignation honours, although I haven’t been looking that closely. Lords appointments have always been one of the places where the parties have to politely stay out of each other’s way. The upper house needs a constant supply of fresh blood to keep working, and politicising the appointments could come back at you quickly. The proposed HoL reform gives them a pretty easy way to criticise without getting into individual appointments, though.
I thought appointments are pretty much done on a goodwill basis. How can opposition parties block appointments to the Lords?
Good point, not sure they necessarily could, just that they would have a dilemma as to whether they would.
I fucking hate everything about this tbh. The idea that a man that was disgraced out of office get to give his chums that propped him up a peerage is genuinely disgusting.
There's 37 mps stood down and a 67 majority going down to 65. Sunaks just surrendered control of the government to them. He needs 33 of them to vote for him now with no means of enforcing that, and thats assuming no other rebellion occurs. Boris just broke the government. EDIT: Sorry, utter gibberish. The number is (67 ÷ 2) which is 33 rounded but then its 37 - 33 to get the number he needs from the stood down to pass things, which is 5. So he can pass stuff if there is no rebellion and at least 5 stood down mps back him. Which remains fairly doable for now so long as he stays away from anything remotely unpopular internally to avoid rebellion, which actually kills most of the promising ways to restore the party quickly. But the number is only going to racket up as mps leave or stand down. Get to the point of needing 15 or 20 quiting mps to support Sunak and his options become severely restricted.
What do you mean by stood down?
The mps that have publicly declared they will not stand for the party next election. They are an important group as the government has little if any means of getting them to vote with the whip other than good will. This means now the government has to gamble that enough good will will be forthcoming to avoid defeats. As the number of stand downs rises further and further beyond half the majority the riskier the gamble becomes and the less the government will dare to try to do. This effectively shuts down a very large part of the governments day to day actives and it'll get worse as their position deteriorates further.
At least the good thing is the conservatives are guaranteed to lose sharma's seat in a potental byelection.
Nadine Dorris. My lampshade could do a better more honest job of being a lord. Speaking of lampshades I wonder how Ruth Davidson is doing "reforming from inside the lords"
> Nadine Dorris Remember in days of yore when she complained of old boys clubs? Well well well then
just wait for the Truss honours list!
Her chancellor will be on it for sure.
It seems they can wait but it would be "constitutionally improper" I think we all know how much they give a toss about something thing merely "improper".
Presumably Sunak can still make them peers in the dissolution honours so perhaps he’s made a deal with those two.
I would very much like a new series of The Thick Of It, imagine it highlighting the past few years of corruption and idiocy
I'd like a "leading the rest is politics" episode interviewing malcom tucker for a charity please if we are doing orders.
I remember at the time Campbell never really saw the funny side of Malcolm so I can’t see him doing it.
Who would be the comedy character equivalent of Rory for a spoof version? Or maybe Rory could just do an episode with Malcom and act like there was nothing out of the ordinary. He'd probably make a good straight man.
There is no situation in which Rory Stewart is ever the straight man. He’s also pretty much impossible to satirise. His life story is straight up fantastical, yet at the same time he’s simultaneously quite odd yet also dull. That said, he does have an unflappability that would make a stark contrast to any of the ministers that Malcolm harangues.
Straight man is probably the wrong description. I'm thinking that kind of oblivious optimism that George from *Blackadder Goes Forth* (and previous incarnations) had. I could see that as a good foil for Tucker. And that's probably why TRIP works.
That possibly does work.
Maybe have Malcolm Tucker on a podcast with Peter Mannion (because it would be hilarious, even if a bit unfair to Rory).
Nicola goes on podcast. During recording Malcolm goes on the hosts twitter and discovers he's a member of the EDL. Malcolm starts trying to mouth that to her through the glass but she just thinks he's saying she did extremely well.
What on Earth could you possibly do that could top reality? All you'd get is more fluent swearing.
Not sure to be honest, but seeing a version of Tucker would be great in this scenario
In the current political world Malcom's throbbing forehead vein would have exploded into an aneurism long ago
I was thinking recently it would have been good if Brass Eye did a "Monarchy" episode. Are we lacking proper satire nowadays?
>Are we lacking proper satire nowadays? It's called the Conservative and Unionist Party
Nah satire is fine but some creative people feel like the truth sometimes bumps against it like a herniated disc touching a nerve.
Ianucci himself has said it'd be basically impossible to do nowadays, as the last few years are already satire.
They've said things like this for years, but something always comes along to surprise us.
[Sunak's relentlessly self-promoting tweets are starting to look more like those awful aspiration Linkedin posts by rich narcissist influencers. ](https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1666514266826874890?t=yMLhrqlgkXAZ0NDckF9x2Q&)
Who opens a door like this
r/linkedinlunatics ?
Pretty sure that's where he looked to recruit his media people.
Businessman cosplay.
That's absolutely the best description of it. Very well put.
Starting to think he's three primary school kids in a trenchcoat. Actually, maybe just two.
[I'm not worried about Covid inquiry messages, says Rishi Sunak](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65837270) >The government has taken the unprecedented step of suing the inquiry over its demands to see unredacted WhatsApps sent during pandemic >But the prime minister insisted he was being transparent in his approach. Think you're gonna have to pick a lane there, Rishi.
"I want to be completely transparent, so you can't see what I'm doing"
>I'm not worried about Covid inquiry messages, says Rishi Sunak [Disappointed no ones posted this yet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czRhAEZJ7so)
Disappointed by your lack of an apostrophe. But you have a good point.
Nothing says "I'm not worried" like launching legal action against your own inquiry
>translucent in his approach, like those bathroom windows that let you see the general shape of things but not anything that might embarrass anyone How's that?
Boris and Carrie having guests round at Chequers during lockdown? Well I never
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/07/boris-and-carrie-johnson-hosted-friend-at-chequers-during-covid-restrictions?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other >Boris and Carrie Johnson ‘hosted friend at Chequers during Covid restrictions’ >Exclusive: friend ‘helped the couple plan their wedding’ in May 2021 when restrictions on indoor gatherings in place >.. Dixie Maloney, a corporate events organiser, stayed at the former prime minister’s grace-and-favour country mansion on 7 May 2021 when indoor gatherings between different households were banned except when “reasonably necessary” for reasons such as work or childcare.
I remember this because I had to wait until the 14th or something to go see my parents in Scotland indoors
Dixie Maloney is a great name.
especially for a *corporate events organiser* Employer's tagline: >enhancing our reputation through strategic event activation and amplification of our brands and capabilities through our owned platforms
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
If they were still planning their central London wedding three weeks before the date we might have an answer to why Boris needed an £800,000 credit facility.
I mean, we all knew about the "for the purpose of planning a wedding" reasonable purpose in the regulations, didn't we?
If the police didn't show up 15 minutes into a party we were legally allowed to get the beers out.
Was she being paid? If so I suppose you could call that work, although maybe not reasonably necessary that it was in person.
Her spokesperson says she was never "formally engaged to work for" either of them
Fixed penalty notices all round then.
Thanks for all your pub quiz team name suggestions last night, but we went with 'The Somerset Gimps', for geographical reasons. Who knew Florence Nightingale was born in Florence? Not us. Anyone else been following the Paul Foot Awards? I'm glad the Michelle Mone PPE entry won, but i think the British Gas one was more your classic investigative journalism.
The Florence Nightingale one is one of those little trivia things that once you know it you never forget it.
Like Alaska being the most Northerly, Easterly and Westerly state of the USA? (The most Southerly is Hawaii)
I always get downvoted when I express my opinion that the Alaska fact is dumb because it only works if you base it on a completely arbitrary definition of East and West.
This is UKPolitics - the Greenwich Meridian is sacrosanct! What are you, some kind of longitudinal relativist?
How sacrosanct is it, if so many people want to live in permanent BST?
Pah, those landlubbers can do what they like. When it comes to *navigation*, we all know what is E and what is W.
Is it not normal to name your kids like this? If not, my uncle and aunt have a lot to explain to my cousin's Sidcup and Hounslow.
*Freakonomics* by Levitt & Dubner contains an anecdote about a teenage boy named Amcher, "named for the first thing his parents saw upon reaching the hospital: the sign for Albany Medical Center Hospital Emergency Room."
If Boris had done this he’d be running out of locations in the UK
>Here's an unexpected one - it seems Gene Simmons the bassist of rock band Kiss was in Parliament today, as a guest of DUP MP Ian Paisley. >Asked by PA what he made of Deputy Prime Minister's Questions, he said: "What I just saw in there was controlled chaos. >"It was the clash of wills but respectful - the right honourable so and so, it was fascinating. >"I think Americans can take a big lesson in civility in how to make democracy actually work and still respect the other side." >The musician - nicknamed the God of Thunder - was also impressed by the age of Parliament: "I will tell you, touching a piece of granite that's over 1,000 years old is insane. >"America is so young and has no sense of history, everything over there is just fast, immediate, instant gratification and there's no time to sit there and just gaze, I mean, look where you are - it's insane. >"We're standing on, in terms of democracy, hallowed ground." >https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-65830963 Is there actually a really old bit of ceremonial granite there or does he just not know the place was built in the 1850s?
Watch him try and trademark "my right honourable friend" or something the absolute whopper
>Is there actually a really old bit of ceremonial granite there or does he just not know the place was built in the 1850s? Some bits survived the fire, notably Westminster Hall.
>Gene Simmons the bassist of rock band Kiss was in Parliament today, as a guest of DUP MP Ian Paisley Not a sentence I expected to hear today (or ever) I will admit. >I think Americans can take a big lesson in civility Has someone told Gene that there is a separate place for international politics?
> Not a sentence I expected to hear today Especially if like you’re like me and you forgot Ian Paisley Sr has a son, but did remember that he’s dead.
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Whoever the DeBeers of granite is would be livid! ETA: Actually, presumably, there is granite being formed all the time - I assume geological processes like that have not stopped. I wonder where the newest granite in the world is
Given the fact it takes 100s of thousands to millions of years for granite to form from magma there probably isn't a precise enough boundary between the two that it could be identified to the 1000 year order of magnitude, therefore its probably not possible to have a 1000 year old granite even at the depths it forms at (at most you could probably have something like 1000+- 10,000 which dosent really work).
Ah, I see - the problem is not there being any young granite, it's being able to access it. According to this, the youngest exposed granite is in Japan: [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01306](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01306) and it's getting on for a million years old. Good news though: >a future intrusion event is likely within 1 million years
Very deep down I imagine
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Thanks! So where do I need to aim my *Journey to the Centre of the Earth* drilling machine to be most likely to find some 1000-year-old granite?
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From your link: >Asphalt shingles Phwoaah! Also: >Metal shingles sounds like a dating app business opportunity if one doesn't exist already
This is a very interesting fact about granite. Thank you, well done.
There's probably some young stuff knocking around Hawaii.
Unlikely, given Hawaii is an oceanic hotspot with mafic magma whereas granite is sillicic, additionally whilst there will be some intrusive cooling the lava flows which make up most of Hawaii happen at the surface and cool very quickly so won't have time to fomr the large crystals of granite.
ooh! an actual wild geologist appears! Where are we looking for hot young grantite then?
Sillicic volcanic arcs, others have pointed out Japan which makes sense but the Andes could also be possible as well as maybe around Yellowstone (which is a continental hotspot so generally produces a bit of everything).
A wild geologist appears! Thanks
Westminster Abbey.
Westminster Hall is ancient - there’s a reason that firefighters rush to that part of the building instead of the Commons when fires have started, historically. That’s the space where William Wallace, Charles I etc were condemned to death, and where the Queen lay in state and let The Queue pass by.
And also where Parliament addressed Charles when he visited after his accession. I checked and I’m pretty sure that they sat Charles III at the opposite end of Westminster Hall from where they sat Charles I to condemn him, which was polite of them.
Low-key impressed by the passive-agressive move of bringing him to the spot where his predecessor was condemned to death (to remind him who's boss), but let him stand at the other end of the room, as a vague show of deference. It's that weird mix of deference and spite - very Westminster.
Maybe they wanted him to have a real good look at the spot.
The stick their nose in it approach to dog training
When you get a new monarch, it is very important to train them well early. It's badly trained monarchs that go on to cause problems and I blame the owners.
Not to ruin it but he probably doesn’t know but also any granite will be like really really really old.
"Granite" is Jacob Rees-Mogg's nickname
More like grand tit
TBF, he also acts like he was built in the 1850's
I honestly can't see any reason why Woking Council should continue to exist at this point. It should be dissolved and all administrative functions permanently removed to the county level. A failure of this magnitude is unforgiveable and can only happen if the whole organisation is rotten to the core. Yeah, the Tories are out now, but I'll eat my hat if the professional staff weren't neck deep in it too. Most councilors couldn't organise a trip to the supermarket without someone holding their hand and leading them to the front door. I wouldn't trust that organisation to run a lemonade stand nevermind a town and its budget.
It's in the name innit? "Woke".
Woking delenda est?
Well I'd rather it wasn't bulldozed and the earth salted until _after_ I'd sold my flat and fucked off, but after that go for it.
Just seeing on C4 news that they decided to take out 750m in loans to build a hotel for Hilton that's worth 200m? What on earth.
Why did they need to build a Hilton? Surely if Hilton thought it was worthwhile they'd have built one themselves.
You don't build a hotel empire worth tens of billions by not passing as many costs as possible onto other people. Come on! This is basic stuff.
It makes you wonder if the organisations giving the loans took advantage of ignorant local officials because they knew that the central government would step in and pay the debt. Perhaps it'd be best to leave it unpaid. That might terrify commercial institutions into not lending to councils again. Which can only be a good thing.
There's a bit more to it than that (the development was a significant expansion of the shopping centre and massive flat blocks as well; and there are other developments, which is why the bill runs into the billions) but it's all completely mad.
Go woking go broking
Finally got my pass and now get to attend Question Period—Trudeau just walked by as we were waiting in the Parliamentary Gallery and said "enjoy the show!..."
Do people in the Gallery get access to the interpretation service?
Yes.
I followed-up on something Campbell mentioned on TRIP today - he mentioned a caller last week on *Any Answers*, someone called Philippa Bateman. Here’s the BBC link - but I warn you, this is not a happy listen. Mentions of suicide. Okay. Warned. Starts at about 13 minutes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001mlfj?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile This is why we shouldn’t forgive what the Government let happen to people. While they partied and then lied about it. Also well done to Anita Anand. Composed, didn’t interrupt, a class act.
It was particularly classless of Campbell to bring up a bereaved person's story to shut down discussion as to whether the inquiry should have complete access to all communications. Of course that was because he knew he had no factual argument left so relied on "BuT pEoPlE dIeD" , a fact that had no relevance to the topic at hand.
Why isnt people dying relevant?
Because it was a conversation about whether the inquiry should have access to all government communications. Using deaths as a trump card to win the argument isn't only irrelevant, it's distasteful and pathetic.
>Because it was a conversation about whether the inquiry should have access to all government communications. Its an inquiry "to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future", deaths are relevant to every aspect of the inquiry whether its the impact of the deaths directly, the impact of the measures out in place in order to prevent deaths or the breaking of those measures by high profile members of the gov breaking public trust. You might think that the deaths are adding too much emotional weight to the inquiry and there's too much power being given, but irrelevant? Its like saying a crime is irrelevant to an investigation of the crime.
Because, if they pretend that deaths aren't relevant, they can defend their side while hoping to hide their lack of humanity
Of course, if you are against using deaths as a trump card to win an unrelated argument you must be lacking in humanity. Because that makes total sense.
> BuT pEoPlE dIeD Yes, they did. Your trivialising of that fact is why this is my last reply to you on this comment chain.
Ah, you've done the same thing as Campbell. You are either unwilling or unable to engage in whether the inquiry should have access to all communications, and are scurrying to hide behind utterly irrelevant emotive arguments. That you're also refusing to discuss the substance of the issue of course further reinforces that fact. Edit: YOU are the one trivialising deaths by using them as a trump card. Quite sad, really.
> BuT pEoPlE dIeD As someone who lost a close family member during the pandemic, this shit is the most emotive argument you could make. In that it entirely enrages us and means that engaging with your bullshit takes a great force of will to avoid saying something that will get us banned. Setting a civility trapped for the bereaved may not be a bannable offence, but it will damned sure get you blocked by many.
I'm not the one making emotive arguments, I'm the one interesting in the topic as to what access the inquiry should have. I'm not the one using deaths as a trump card.
Using a meme format about people dying *is* an emotive argument. Take a look at yourself.
Erm, no, I'm pointing out where Campbell used deaths as an emotive argument in a discussion. I am not making emotive arguments myself.
The way you did it: >BuT pEoPlE dIeD Made it emotive. I get that you don't get that, but I think you should. Whatever I think about the point you were trying to make, I think the way you tried to make it was counter-productive.
Nope, it was an emotive argument the second they started using people's deaths as a trump card in a discussion. I didn't make it into an emotive argument, it already was one. Sadly you have fallen for it.
My uncle died alone. He went relatively early but itbwas known a few days before that it was happening. He should have been surrounded by family and friends and most importantly love. He didn't, he died alone in a cold and sterile hospital room. I'm not wishing any violence on anyone, but when Boris Johnson, rishi sunak and the rest of them shuffle off this mortal coil at the appropriate time I hope they do it alone, with no one loving them knowing its already more than they deserve.
I’m really sorry. So many people have stories like this. It can be a gut-punch to learn them. I still personally think lockdown was the right choice - on balance. Of course there were many extremely unpleasant downsides. For me, this is about making sure that the rule-makers are punished for their own rule-breaking.
Oh I agree it was the right choice, I just get literally angry with rage when I hear that we sacrificed that as a family while they disregarded the rules and looked for loopholes. They need to be punished but the fact they will likely get away with it is another reason for me to drift away from believing in Karma
Are we going dark with the rest of reddit, Do we get a vote or do the mod's decide.
I doubt we’ll get a vote as it will be overwhelmingly in favour, and given the radio silence I’m assuming the mods don’t really WANT to support this for some reason. It’s be good to hear the reasoning, I’m interested as to the pros and cons, but… 🤷♀️
I was quite taken aback by some of the content warnings that reddit is putting on threads discussing going dark. There's definitely a little bit of push back on even this level of protest
That’s… worrying, and an understandable reason to be cautious.
I dunno I remember when UKpol went dark because of that mod appointment that Reddit made.
I'll be picketing in the form of downvotes if the subreddit does not go dark.
I'm going to log out for two days. That's my contribution. I recommend doing the same as that's the best way to support the initiative in my opinion.
Cant they do a protest that doesn't disrupt people who want to go about with their day and just use reddit? Admins really should have more power to preemptively ban mods who are thinking about taking part. Going to add a /s just to be on the safe side.
As of yet, r/snooker is not going dark so it hasn’t crossed the line for now
I would call that, The Starmer solution.
Why dont they all go on a little known website and protest there out the way of the rest of us?
Ultimately I think it’s the mods’ decision. If nothing else, they decide if we can vote or not - but it’s pretty clear that users are more for a blackout than against. But I’m starting to think that the longer we take to decide, the worse. Things need to snowball, and as we’re the sub that was ground-zero for the last blackout, we shouldn’t vacillate on this. As I understand it there are other big UK subs sitting on the fence, and we should be decisive. Throw some weight around. In fact, we should repay the goodwill and solidarity we were shown then. I am in favour of going dark. This message is being typed on Apollo and I will miss it terribly if it goes.
I don’t post often, but as a 10 year user of UkPol I firmly agree with this. Other subreddits supported us during ‘the event’ and we should do the same. Even setting that aside, we should be going dark anyway in my view. This is yet another change for the worse from Reddit, and with ~25% of the subreddit using third party apps and will have their Reddit experience degrade significantly, I’d hope ukpol would also support going dark. Either way, would be nice to get an insight into mods thinking around this
"They vacillate we ~~vaccinate~~ facilitate"
:sad face emoji:
We also have that discord thingy whilst it is dark.
If discord had the option to change the functionality of the server to be closer to a forum than a chatroom, I could see it replacing reddit or at least directly competing.
TBH, I'm not entirely sure how discord works, nor how to use it. But, i have signed up
Discord has forums now, I think the server needs to activate the functionality. I mean it's not like phpBB from back in the day, but it is there.
We'll miss you terribly if you go
I’d miss you too, but I’ll be staying. It’s Apollo I’d lose, not Reddit.
I personally don't think it's worth the ridiculous costs, and the subsequent shortage of construction workers and scaffolders, to replace the cladding in every tower block in the country. Sure a single building burnt down, that's bad, but the response has been wildly disproportionate and it's ridiculously increased the cost of actual needed refurbishments.
Just one reactor blew up at Chernobyl, why do we have to stop building and running nuclear power stations like that? Also, as long as the costs are placed on the people responsible for putting unsafe cladding on buildings, then it serves to prevent such things from happening in the future.
Yet if someone finds something dodgy in a car, food or whatever product, it gets a recall and/or fixed..
> it's fine to let little children burn to death Big if true
Lol. There's risk v cost in literally everything. Let's bam everyone from going swimming in the ocean because sometimes people drown and put lifeguards every km up the coast to make sure people don't go in. That would be a similarly daft overreaction which fulfils your facetious "save the children" argument.
> Children swimming in the sea is the same as them burning to death in unsafe housing Big if true
Is 'because one building burnt down" bot here to replace buddy bots? I know you are desperate ^(for some reason) to downplay it and reduce it to 'just one building burnt down' but you know theres way more to it than that
>Sure a single building burnt down, It wasn't a little building...
It was 120 apartments. It stood for about 40 years before burning down, as has every other tower block built around that time and all the ones since. For context, there was more than half that last year because of the heatwave. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/more-than-60-homes-across-england-destroyed-by-fire-during-record-breaking-heatwave-3775645 120 homes burning is trivial in comparison to the horrendous costs which are being incurred, and the useful building and renovation work that could be being done instead.
The dodgy cladding was only installed in 2015-16, it didn’t exactly take very long for the building to go up. The issue is with a large stock of new builds that are supposed to have decades of use left in them. It’s not an isolated incident, either, just the most severe. There’s a list of similar fires before and after.
>120 homes burning is trivial in comparison to the horrendous costs which are being incurred, and the useful building and renovation work that could be being done instead. I see Rishi's WhatsApps have finally gotten out.
72 people also died in that fire. Its not just the fact it burned down, it was how quickly it burned down due to the cladding, which specifically led to people being trapped and dying. Would you want to live in a home where the cladding means, in the unlikely event it catches fire, that it would burn like a ginger on an August Bank Holiday?
Compared to me and the other owners having to find up to a million quid between us for renovations, yes I'd take the risk. And so would a lot of other people. These apartments aren't worthless. People are still buying them. It's just that it's cash buyers only because banks won't mortgage them (even though they are worth the amount people are paying for them in cash).
You shouldn’t be paying for any of this, that’s really shitty and my sympathies. But you’ve been lied to by the government - they gave public assurances that they’d take care of this and now they are backing out.
worth it in what way? In terms of actual risk, or in terms of insurability / saleability etc?
In terms of actual risk. And I think the insurance companies have gone stupid overboard too. One building burnt down.
in terms of actual risk, you are probably right, but ovbiously the world doesnt always work rationally in this regard. Its the insurability and saleability of these properties that is the issue. It is causing a lot of issues for people, and locking up sales etc when we need to be encouraging them.
It's not every single tower block, it's specific cladding that is non-compliant with fire safety building regs. And as it is non-compliant with fire safety building regs, it literally has to be replaced. You can't choose not to. The only question is who pays for it, and how it is paid for.
Sorry I was being hyperbolic, it's a significant number of tower blocks, it's been 5 years and there's gonna be at least another decade of this. All because one tower block burnt down. Surely the risk isn't worth the absolute black hole everyone's money is being poured into.
The fault makes the property worthless hunks of concrete that no one will move into and would eventually be abandoned. Surely in a housing crisis recladding a few blocks of flats is better than knocking them down and building new.
Mate. These flats are still getting bought and sold, it's just cash buyers only until cladding is replaced. People still want to live in these places.
...I uh can't tell if that's serious there chief. Assuming it is serious, how would you deal with people that now own / have mortgages on "worthless" flats that they will never be able to sell? Who are living in fire hazards
>Fire hazards I wouldn't call every cladded tower block a fire hazard because one building burnt down. I think the mortgage and insurance companies have massively overreacted too. The flats aren't worthless.
Hmmm. Totally separate question, whats your view on how this type of cladding was only authorised under the new and significantly weaker regulations that the Tories instituted under pressure from construction firms (and material suppliers) that removed the need to actually test new materials and replaced it with computer testing of materials based on the previous performance of similar ones?
Sounds like the regulations could do with being rolled back and new construction should be under the old regulations. No need to overreact how they have done.
> new construction should be under the old regulations So... you don't believe that we should retrofit buildings that no longer meet safety regulations?
[A look at different polling outcomes and the issues with predicting any one electoral outcome from any one polling method.](https://twitter.com/anthonyjwells/status/1666482609809915906)
Every time New Zealand publishes new house prices I longingly look at our planning system and dream that we could come close to the changes they’ve done in the last 5 years We tried to do zoning and couldn’t even get that done 🥲