peterms

Total number of local authority homes built in the ten years from 1998 to 2007 under T. Blair, 3,590

Total number of local authority homes built in the ten years from 1980 to 1989 under M. Thatcher, 392,090

But it's all Thatcher's fault....

:?

How many homes were taken out of local authority stock in those periods?

The equation is surely homes out minus homes in?

To understand what was happening in that period, you have to have some knowledge of local authority finance and housing policy. The simple figures lead to the big misunderstanding which Jon displays.

For example, the policy changes the Tories made choked off council housebuilding, but this didn't really start to bite until the mid-80s. If you check out tables of local authority house completions year by year, you will see a massive change from the early 80s to the late 80s. The reason for the low completions under Blair is that the policy remained in force - and the tiny numbers show how effective it was at stopping councils building.

Another factor is that grant was redirected from councils to housing associations. But they had to borrow to make up the grant, meaning loans from the City, paid for by rents, largely subsidised from housing benefit - so tax income was directed towards making interest payments to city firms. Nice business for Thatch's mates, and of course the growing housing crisis meant a revival of the largely crappy private rented sector, and a crisis in homelessness, meaning exorbitant fees paid to slum landlords, another of her constituencies of support. Taxes redirected into astonishing profits for slum landlords keeping people in dangerous conditions.

And of course council house sales drove the imbalance in supply and demand which drove this mad equation.

Was it all Thatcher's fault? Possibly not. Maybe there were a few local factors at work. But as a quick overview, was the housing crisis of the 80s and 90s, and the countless tales of human misery which lie behind the figures, driven by Thatcher's and the Tories' efforts to redirect public money into the pockets of themselves and their mates? Yes, without question.

Mass immigration was a Labour social engineering project intended to irreversably change the ethinc make up of the UK. It was done for ideological reasons and with zero mandate from the electorate to carry it out.

Oct 2009, BBC

In his article Mr Neather [Former Downing Street aide] said the "major shift" in immigration policy had come after the publication of a policy paper from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a Downing Street think-tank.

The published version promoted the labour market case for immigration, but Mr Neather said: "Earlier [unpublished] drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."

The "deliberate policy" had lasted from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points-based immigration system was introduced, he added.

Of course they deny it but then Brown also denied cutting defence spending while we were at war, despite that demonstrably being a lie.

Of course if you dare to raise this issue you are labelled a "bigot". What a bunch of arse.

The definitive shift in UK immigration policy took place in the post-war period. For pretty obvious reasons, we were short of labour, and encouraged people to immigrate.

This policy was still active under the Tory government, 1959-64. In fact, the Ministry of Health sent out people to the West Indies, to encourage immigration in order to fill empty jobs as nurses, porters and so on. Minster of Health at the time? Wasn't that Enoch Powell?

No serious person labels anyone discussing immigration as racist per se. However, it remains the case that an awful lot of people expressing concern about immigration are in fact racists. Sorry if that sounds "PC", whatever that idle term is now meant to connote.

I'm reasonably clattered, having cracked open a bottle of claret after the final whistle. Moved onto the Speckled Hen a couple of hours ago. It's not everyday we beat the scum is it? It's just every season.

Well, twice a season, to be fair.

Good price and lens?

Someone just asked me what I thought of this - is it a good price / lens - I said I had not got a clue but would ask the experts .................

they were not available so I thought I'd ask you lot - views?

Never heard of it, but this review says, in summary,

Regarding its extremely low price tag you can't really expect a stellar performance from the Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 LD Di macro but from a value perspective it is fairly amazing what it can give you.

Love the way the page you linked shows "accessories" as being the cameras you would need to put it on!

what we saying 8 or 9 minutes added time?

Commentator said over 7 mins just for the head injury, so yes...

Nice control, Fagan.

Milner needs to grab this game by the balls and make something happen if he really is the 2nd coming.

That do you, squire?

gabby you bellend. awful foul

Yes, god forbid he should track back and try and get the ball when we have a man down. Kilbane was looking for that - not Gabbys fault.

Good that he was tackling back, bit clumsy though.

Think we need Dunney and Collins to sort Fagan out.

Think your wish came at least partly true.

I'd go

Friedel

Young L. Cuellar. Dunne. Buma

Petrov. Delph

Ash. Milner. Downing

Gabby

Don't agree on the back four, but I'd like to see that midfield and attack given a chance. I think it could be pretty strong.

...How come Downing and Young, both often labbelled as great crossers of the ball, great free kick takers, excellant technique etc etc cant seem to put a decent ball in the box?...

Young was very accurate with a couple of balls in the second half.

Trouble is, they were Pienaar's.

We've played well , are far better than Kickandbiteton ,just so far not put the ball in the net

can't fault the manager or the players reall so far

This.

I agree, we're not doing badly.

Seems competence and intelligence are not essential to get into positions of extreme governmental power.

Jeremy Grantham is probably one of the dozen or so sharpest money managers in the world (he pretty much just manages money for large institutional players), with a particular expertise in spotting bubbles before they get close to bursting. He predicted in 2006 that "in five years, at least one major bank (broadly defined) will have failed and that up to half the hedge funds and a substantial percentage of the private equity firms in existence today will have simply ceased to exist," due to excessively high valuations in debt and equity markets.

In his Autumn 2008 letter to his investors, Grantham wrote:

I ask myself, ‘Why is it that several dozen people saw this crisis coming for years?’ I described it as being like watching a train wreck in very slow motion. It seemed so inevitable and so merciless, and yet the bosses of Merrill Lynch and Citi and even [u.S. Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson and [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke — none of them seemed to see it coming.

I have a theory that people who find themselves running major-league companies are real organization-management types who focus on what they are doing this quarter or this annual budget. They are somewhat impatient, and focused on the present. Seeing these things requires more people with a historical perspective who are more thoughtful and more right-brained — but we end up with an army of left-brained immediate doers.

So it’s more or less guaranteed that every time we get an outlying, obscure event that has never happened before in history, they are always going to miss it. And the three or four-dozen-odd characters screaming about it are always going to be ignored. . . .

So we kept putting organization people — people who can influence and persuade and cajole — into top jobs that once-in-a-blue-moon take great creativity and historical insight. But they don’t have those skills.

I think that observation holds very well in politics and in any organisation.

It probably does.

But what can you do about it? Which organisations, outside government or well-funded think thanks, can employ people to think long-term? Well, apart from German industries. And probably lots of other examples as well.

That was thick from Collins, you could clearly see the player was going to nick it. No complaints about the pentaly being awared. I do have a few complaints about their dirty challenges escaping the ref's attention though.

there was no contact so how was it a penalty?

In all seriousness though, beating West Ham, Wolves and Sunderland, and losing to Man U and Arsenal would just have people being merely satisfied that we're winning against 'lesser' opposition, and kicking off that we can't compete with the elite.

The reality is we have proved this season that we can compete with the elite. We've been in a cup final, and at least a cup semi final. We've put top four sides to the sword. We have also, disappointingly, not done enough against mediocre opposition on occasion. Until recently, the latter lows were the norm, but the former highs didn't happen. That (and the obvious chairmen difference) is why it's not like how it was under Gregory, and why I'm happy to be a Villan.

Yes, sign me up for that view.

I hope it won't be drowned out by more pessimistic voices.

...By preventing an investigation into these sleaze ridden fcukwits and the susbsequent allegations about Mandleson, Adonis and gawd know who else?

Fascinating to see Mandy commenting that

"It's extremely disappointing and it's very sad and altogether rather grubby".

I thought it was the yanks who didn't do irony. How quickly does he forget his own past history.

Was it Hoon who said he had been taken in by the deception because the company "had a website and everything"? That might shed some light on the degree of credulousness with which the Cabinet scrutinised the dodgy dossier when taking us into an illegal war.

Shock?

It's the misspelling of "utmost". It gets me that way, too.

... Reagan in the '80s... each was followed by a substantial increase in aggregate income and GDP.

Worst recession for 50 years, 10+% inflation, 20% interest rates, massive increase in military spending but congressional inquiry into why so little result was evident for the money...

...and the way out of recession was reduced inflation via falling oil prices, and covering the combination of falling taxation and rising state spending by more than doubling national debt, turning the US into the world's biggest debtor...

What would be interesting is to consider the effect of tax cuts on economic growth without making up the gap by borrowing from abroad. That might be a better test of the theory.

"Lord Adonis". Snigger.

I see your snigger, and I raise you a guffaw.

To ignore these international criminals and focus on some street corner **** Mr Big is entirely, shockingly, missing the point.

To think that missing the bullets/blades flying in front of one's face is 'entirely missing the point' in favour of some flimsy international viewpoint is, I fear, more than just getting it wrong - it is fundamentally missing the point of international socialism.

Could you expand on your point a bit more?

Well, could I propose an idea? Drug abuse has many unpleasant consequences, such as the effect on individuals, on neighbours, on victims of crime, and more widely on national economies and international relations.

But all that is as nothing compared to the effect of energy policy. If you could translate one into the terms of the other, Dubya and his oil mates would be the biggest gangsta in the playground, dealing to the pre-school kids and shooting the teacher who asked them to tone it down a little.

These are the people who are the real problem, who should be locked up in a deep hole on some deserted island, for all our sakes.

To ignore these international criminals and focus on some street corner **** Mr Big is entirely, shockingly, missing the point.

And on that point, I'm sure we would all prefer that people who need the harder stuff were able to turn up to a clinic in a controlled environment and be supplied with clean goods, administered in a way which didn't spread contamination, without ending up having to burgle and rob to pay for it, and without hanging round a dealer's house and intimidating neighbours who don't feel comfortable walking through groups of people who show little awareness of or sympathy with their fears.

But of course that would mean being soft on druggies, so that could never happen. Wash my mouth out.

Not sure that you needed me to respond but, to fit in with the VT vogue, 'this'.

Ithankyew.

So with that one put to bed, it's on to energy policy...

Thats the trouble with you wishy washy liberal types, far too bloody sensible on drugs

Hey! I'm not on drugs. And I'm sensible anyway.

There's an argument that decriminalising the soft stuff at the same time as being firmer on selling harder stuff would be helpful, exactly by cutting that connecting chain.

I think it's a very good argument, Peter.

It is also an argument that addresses the move from selling the 'soft stuff' to mates to being pushed into selling harder stuff to a less matey clientele (that isn't to excuse those dealing but just to address the situation where it changes from a simple difficulty with the quantity of the footfall to a difficulty with the state of the bodies and minds above those feet).

And on that point, I'm sure we would all prefer that people who need the harder stuff were able to turn up to a clinic in a controlled environment and be supplied with clean goods, administered in a way which didn't spread contamination, without ending up having to burgle and rob to pay for it, and without hanging round a dealer's house and intimidating neighbours who don't feel comfortable walking through groups of people who show little awareness of or sympathy with their fears.

But of course that would mean being soft on druggies, so that could never happen. Wash my mouth out.

Drugs policy is an interesting area.

First thing would be to cut the umbilical cord between casual drug use and (potentially extreme) criminality.

It isn't the use of blow (or even his high retail footfall) that worries me about my neighbour dealing (though it does piss me off) - it is the possibility that his dealing might really piss somebody else off and that I or my brother or some other innocent will get caught up in the ensuing market skirmish.

There's an argument that decriminalising the soft stuff at the same time as being firmer on selling harder stuff would be helpful, exactly by cutting that connecting chain.

When it's easier to buy something hard than something softer, that's a clue that drugs policy isn't working.