Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Very sad story - but an incredible piece of reporting:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-teens-fatal-plunge-into-the-london-underworld

Edit: Also long.

[crazy canuck]

In regards to UK and property, how widespread is the whole leasehold thing in the world? Coming from an ex-communist state its existence blindsided me but maybe it's not so rare out there.

I think we have something similar in Germany. You sign a contract for 99 years and have to pay some annual rate for the land. You can build etc. and I think after the 99 years the land and the building go back to the land owner, but I think they have to pay market value for the building. Not very common here I think. Church-owned land is often in that legal form.

Leaseholds are rare but not unheard of in Canada.

Where it's most common I think is homes built on Indian Reserves.  First Nations are perhaps understandably very reluctant to sell off reserve land - but in some cases close to cities they have allowed development based on 99 year leases.

They are not reluctant, they are prohibited from doing so under the Indian Act.



Also Leasehold has become much more common in the last 30 years.

As an example, when UBC developed its property, it was all leasehold.

[Jacob]

If Poilievre does lose, one of the things I'll enjoy about it will be hearing how Sheilbh explains how the UK Right reacts.

[Josquius]

Yeah I disagree. I don't think it was cowardice from a chunk of the left I think it was that they fundamentally didn't think the issue was supply but that it was private supply, supply for profit, luxury flats, land-banking, rentiers etc. At best I don't think it was tinkering around the edges but a mental displacement activity. There's been voices - like Jonn Elledge of "build more bloody houses" fame - who have been pushing this for over a decade and it's a remarkable achievement (and I think a sign they're right) that they've now got the young centre right and libertarians and the Labour party more or less singing from the same hymn sheet.

I don't think cowardice is the word I'd use.
Rather more being overly cautious and politically conservative.
Yeah you could promise to build 1000 houses....but the people you'd annoy in doing that are much bigger than those who would go for this.
Its much more politically viable to avoid complete revolution (which is where actually building stuff is in the modern UK) and rather just evolution by managing what is there better -which isn't a terrible idea in itself, though needs be done with actually building as well.

Also of course this avoiding building was common to both parties- though I do get the impression far more so with the tories.
The right's focus has been on too much demand, whilst its on the left that you did get the voices saying too little supply.

Right - but what is profitable is driven by the system. If the process of getting planning is expensive and very uncertain then you'll be broadly risk averse and then you'll try to recoup some margin in the actual building phase.

Largely true.
Building a mid-rise block of flats in a historic city centre would absolutely be profitable.... but it just isn't something that a developer would be able to do. Its a preservation area.
But we're talking here about a theoretical where the planning side of things is made drastically easier and developers can basically build anywhere.
Odds are good you'd get vast numbers taking the easy option for quick profits over the options that are actually better for the country and would still turn a profit but not as much.

Again something Japan is far more comfortable with. They demolish and build vastly more - so that sprawl also isn't forever but a contingent choice.

Not necessarily here. The government has little to do with it. Many towns are desperately seeking to control it. Its individuals (and companies serving them) looking for large cheap homes that are creating sprawl.
Also the idea that the sprawl isn't forever and will be gone one day... ish. But not as it was. It will be massively degraded, basically brown field. And who will clear up all those abandoned houses? What of all the  waste that went into making them?
There's also a further problem here in that abandoning doesn't go evenly. Rather than mile after mile of housing you'll instead have a patchwork of houses scattered over miles, requiring the same infrastructure but for far less tax income.

I think embodied carbon and the environmental impact of demolition is going to become the main focus of NIMBYism  once Labour takes power. It'll be attacking this policy from the left and using environmental issues as the way to do that.

Perhaps. NIMBYs definitely do use fake concerns and that's one they can really latch onto considering there are genuine points to be made there. Quite some work available in calculating the environmental cost of renovation vs. rebuilding.


Really? I mean there's literally a property program called "location location location" because that's the standard answer on what's the most important thing in choosing where to live. [/quote]
Isn't that more about teaching people what they should be shopping for because it isn't the key factor most would traditionally consider?
The whole buy the worst house on the best street thing.

And I'm an urban homosexual, you like living in by a forest and a pub - but practically lots of people like anonymous suburbia There's a reason it's an enduring form and that people like Barrett Houses. I think we should sort of meet people where they are and let them have the houses they want even if it doesn't match up with our ideas of how people should live (I feel like the 20th century is a big demonstration of the failure of architecture's normative power ).

1: Do they really like living in anonymous suburbia? Or are these Barret estates what happens to be available and they could afford? What the planning system dictates keeps getting built? My house certainly isn't my ideal.
2: Car centric suburbia may suit a 40 year old guy whose entire life revolves around driving to work and back... but what about his kids?
Living in these areas is child...abuse is too strong a word...child damaging?
3: Its the 20th century's remoulding of society and a return to a more standard setup (with modern conveniences) that we're talking about here.
4: I am quite fond of certain aspects of modern civilization and would like to see them continue. Not to mention all that wildlife out there in the world which is under risk. The facts are this 20th century way of life just isn't sustainable.
It ultimately doesn't matter whether people actually like it or not. Continuing down that path will ultimately not be in their interests nor anyone elses.

I'd take people being able to afford housing and people having more floorspace of their own for 10% more cars - especially if they're EVs.

It's not 10% more. As I noted in Tokyo the numbers are super low whilst most of the country is significantly higher.
Also EVs are a dead-end path. They're an improvement on ICE, but the idea we can just keep everything exactly as it is but swapping out ICE for EVs just isn't practical.

And then needless to say there's far more negative effects from sprawl than there just being more cars. The environment, mental health, social cohesion... its damaging enough for Japan where the culture has some features pushing (much too far) the other way. In the UK with our toxic individualism issues it'd be devastating.

[Sheilbh]

If Poilievre does lose, one of the things I'll enjoy about it will be hearing how Sheilbh explains how the UK Right reacts.

They will all move seamlessly, like swans on a pond, to boosting the great success of Chris Luxon in New Zealand or Peter Dutton if he wins in Australia next year

There's been housing reform there which is having a significant impact on volume being buit and prices - but also they like that he got rid of the cigarette ban as a bit of over-excessive nanny state. Of course it slightly terrifies me as it was Ardern's Labour government that passed housing reform and was then voted out

[HVC]

You'd think their time would be better served trying to figure out what English conservatives want rather then the conservatives of their various former dominions.

[Sheilbh]

You'd think their time would be better served trying to figure out what English conservatives want rather then the conservatives of their various former dominions.

It's not just the Tories - and it's all over. As I say the Australians have an outsize impact having run Tory election campaigns for the last 20 years. Keir Starmer's campaign director is Irish and they've had Albanese and Trudeau's campaign teams in (again the Aussies are hanging around to try and sharpen Starmer's messaging). Plus David Lammy is Shadow Foreign Secretary in large part because he has very, very close relationships with the Democrats, although I'm always a little dubious on how relevant lessons from the US are given their system. It definitely holds a huge place in the imagination of British politics though - it's a lot more glamorous

But for example, in 2015 two former senior Obama staffers were advising both the Tories and Labour. Everyone was very interested in the Teals in Australia winning heartland Liberal seats running on environment and less culture wars, but not actually left-wing because the seats are incredibly wealthy - which seems to have a lot of overlap with the Lib Dem threat to the Blue Wall here. Even the terms - we never talked of "walls" until the 2016 US election and Trump breaking down Clinton's Blue Wall.

The parties look at Europe a bit more for ideas rather than tactical/strategic advice because I think the system is more alien, so they think there's more lessons from Canada, Australia and New Zealand - ironically the most "European" strand in British politics is probably the far-right which is very interested in Le Pen, Wilders, Meloni etc. They even have similar messaging on some issues. Plus I think there is a sense the politics are similar-ish - in the long run, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland all tend to have similar-ish levels of taxation/size of the state which is not quite as small as the US and not quite as big as Europe.

The key is not getting too close. I think the Tories under Major sent advisors straight from their surprise victory in 1992 to work on the Bush campaign in a way that really pissed off Clinton's team and actually impacted the relationship between them. Some have said it helped explain why Clinton was willing to do an Oval Office meeting with Blair when he was still Leader of the Opposition - and the Democrats aides fresh out of 1996 who went to advise Blair's campaign in 97.

To be honest I think it's probably pretty common everywhere. I suspect there aren't British strategists going around the world speaking to world leaders about their campaign because there's not been much to emulate and you want to learn from people who've won elections or are doing well. So it's a while ago but Alastair Campbell from Blair and Brown's campaigns is close to leaders such as Macron and I'd be surprised if he didn't have contacts to give a little bit of advice to, say, the Democrats or Labor in Australia or Trudeau (if it was at all welcomed). It's a tiny number of people who win power in a democratic society (particularly by election and by removing an incumbent) - and politics is about people - so I think they're all pretty interested in what each other are doing and what lessons they can learn. It's like the business world - it gets smaller the higher you go.

Plus I think of that Attlee line on the first Labour government "the British elector is very sceptical of anything which he has not seen". If you've got a policy agenda or idea which is going to cause internal party issues like Blair's Third Way or confronting Tory NIMBYs on housing it's very helpful if you can point to international success in that strategy (and I think Thatcher played a similar role). It's not unprecedented.

[crazy canuck]

You'd think their time would be better served trying to figure out what English conservatives want rather then the conservatives of their various former dominions.

I don't think that makes much sense. If you see somebody succeed in another country, and that somebody has policies that are relatively similar to yours, then it makes sense to try to learn the secret of their success.  Think of the impact that Blair had on the NDP here in Canada, for good or ill.

[HVC]

That assumes your base is similar enough to be comparable. Our conservatives skew more American than European. And while I don't think there no value, the Brit's seem to take an oversized chunk of interest in it.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think that makes much sense. If you see somebody succeed in another country, and that somebody has policies that are relatively similar to yours, then it makes sense to try to learn the secret of their success.  Think of the impact that Blair had on the NDP here in Canada, for good or ill.

FWIW I think this is possibly why Canada has a little less impact on the left. As I say Cameron was really interested in Harper, there is a faction on the right that is very interested in Poilievre (and Starmer's team are too given that one of their big ideas is housing and planning reform, plus they're in opposition against an exhausted incumbent - they won't be speaking to his team, but they'll be looking). Canada has also been used as an example of the risk of a splinter party on the right.

But I think there's more direct party-to-party links with Labour, the Democrats, Labour in NZ and Labor in Australia (plus the social democratic parties in Europe) - while their official sibling party in Canada is the NDP which I think is a different prospect as, at a national level, the third party. So I found the detail that Trudeau's campaign advisors had been speaking to Starmer's interesting as I think there is historically just less of a relationship on the left side of politics.

[Sheilbh]

That assumes your base is similar enough to be comparable. Our conservatives skew more American than European. And while I don't think there no value, the Brit's seem to take an oversized chunk of interest in it.

I think that might just be an impression from my posting which is because I'm interested in housing/planning as the one cool thing that would solve everything, but also because we have a number of Canadians so I thought it may be of interest to see how your politics is being received and interpreted by political types here.

[crazy canuck]

I don't think that makes much sense. If you see somebody succeed in another country, and that somebody has policies that are relatively similar to yours, then it makes sense to try to learn the secret of their success.  Think of the impact that Blair had on the NDP here in Canada, for good or ill.

FWIW I think this is possibly why Canada has a little less impact on the left. As I say Cameron was really interested in Harper, there is a faction on the right that is very interested in Poilievre (and Starmer's team are too given that one of their big ideas is housing and planning reform, plus they're in opposition against an exhausted incumbent - they won't be speaking to his team, but they'll be looking). Canada has also been used as an example of the risk of a splinter party on the right.

But I think there's more direct party-to-party links with Labour, the Democrats, Labour in NZ and Labor in Australia (plus the social democratic parties in Europe) - while their official sibling party in Canada is the NDP which I think is a different prospect as, at a national level, the third party. So I found the detail that Trudeau's campaign advisors had been speaking to Starmer's interesting as I think there is historically just less of a relationship on the left side of politics.

I agree, no foreign political party would gain anything by emulating our federal NDP, unless they were able to have somebody like Jack Layton as their leader. But I don't think we will see the likes of him again.

[Gups]

That assumes your base is similar enough to be comparable. Our conservatives skew more American than European. And while I don't think there no value, the Brit's seem to take an oversized chunk of interest in it.

I think you may be confusing Sheilbh with Brits in general. You'd have to be quite the politics nerd to have heard of Trudeau. I'd heard of Poilievre because there was an article in the Economist about him the other week but I'd bet pounds to pennies that less than 1% of Brits have heard of him.

American politics is followed fairly closely here. Politics in France and Germany to a certain extents (usually if thee are strikes). Rightly or wrongly, nobody has any real interest in Canadian politics.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah and my point isn't about a general upsurge of excitement in Britain or even on the British right. It's about a subset of broadly young, centre-right/libertarianism think tank and commentator types who are talking him up as a model. I do think that sort of elite opinion matters come a leadership election.

[crazy canuck]

I am sorry to hear Brits are so ill informed about the world    He has only been Prime Minister for about a decade.