191–200 of 344 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the authors is from the Centre for Policy Studies. Another is from the Adam Smith Institute. These are the gang of shady right-wing think tanks that brought us Truss and Kwarteng. That tells you everything you need to know about their economic competence.
What is shady about them? Are they criminals?
The main reason Britain is failing is it wiped out its industrial base. Without that, it cant build anything effectively.
The UK's manufacturing sector is comparable to France's in size.
> 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Why the focus on second homes? I would care more about utilisation of homes by home-owners: walk around London at night, so many apartments are dark. The locals say investors own them.
The resident might be at work, at the gym, out for dinner or at the cinema, at a friend's house, in another room, might have good blackout curtains and only use lamps for ambience instead of the ceiling light, on holiday. I bet if you stood outside one of these buildings where "most of the lights are off" for the entire evening, you'd see lights come on and off, and in aggregate find that most of the flats were in fact occupied.
By the same logic, I could look outside my window right now, count zero cars driving down the road and declare it a useless waste that nobody uses.
Long essay. TL;DR the UK planning system is too restrictive and is stopping investment. However, some of the comparisons made don't really stack up. Yes. France has a better housing supply, and roughly the same area. But France has over twice the area, and under half the population density, even before you account for the almost uninhabited mountainous areas in Wales, Northern England and Scotland. So our populations…
>it seems obscene to spend all that money in so small an area Greater London has a population nearly three times that of Wales. So the bang-for-buck in this small area is much greater. I completely agree that we under-invest in areas like Wales. But that doesn't mean that under-investing in the most productive part of the country is a good idea.
In what sense is London productive? What are the products?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the authors is from the Centre for Policy Studies. Another is from the Adam Smith Institute. These are the gang of shady right-wing think tanks that brought us Truss and Kwarteng. That tells you everything you need to know about their economic competence.
What is shady about them? Are they criminals?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was regulations that made the cladding be installed in the first place, I thought?
Poor quality of regulation allows sociopath installer who well knows the risk to use lowest cost materials to line their pockets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Prestige based on family lineage is considered a big deal Are you in the UK? The monarchy and House of Lords are an obvious anachronism and they need abolishing [1], but I would say it's a very small minority who care who you parents are/were (mainly people who think their own parents are/were a big deal) — and a similar small minority who might also ask "which school did you go to?". [1] e.g. https://www.sortition…
I don't think people care what school you went to, but the fact remains that the UK has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in Europe.
I’ll need to sit down and read this properly, but I would say there is a real stench of decline in England at the moment and pretty much everyone here would agree. It’s readily apparent the new government won’t save us already. Public services in particular: 2 weeks to see a Dr, a year for an operation, unlikely for the police to attend your call out, stagnant economy, high cost of living and low wages. And all whils…
It's hard to understand how people view the NHS. Some people claim it's the national treasure, but how does that work if service is as abysmal as what you describe ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Transport projects seem to be particularly expensive these days in Anglo countries compared to European countries. For instance, we currently have a planned short tunnel in the UK (under the Thames but not in London itself) where the actual planning process has so far cost $400m.
Stronger property rights tend to backfire in the 2020s as NIMBYs have emerged everywhere and do their best to block anything around them, usually by weaponizing environmental laws. The remedy will probably consist of a combination of legal changes and a change in attitude; YIMBY must become a thing. People respond to social pressures.
Does the UK have stronger property rights than, for instance, Norway that was mentioned by another contributor here as being so much more efficient? Yet Norway has abandoned, for now at least, the south western half of the Oslo to Drammen E18 road upgrade because buying out the owners of expensive houses on the route would be too expensive.
Are you claiming that other comparable democracies have such weak property rights that this significantly affects infrastructure projects? Which ones?