Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Cabinet ministers should be banned from this so they can't deprive the country of its catharsis. I was wondering who would be Portillo

Jeremy Hunt 'set to quit as MP' in fear of a Portillo moment

The chancellor will stand down before the election as likelihood of defeat in new Surrey seat looms, senior Tories say

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/21/jeremy-hunt-set-to-quit-as-mp-in-fear-of-a-portillo-moment

[Sheilbh]

I see Jeremy Hunt is also considering extending help for first time buyers

Who would have thought that the party of Thatcher would reach a point where the only solution they can imagine to a problem is to just subsidise demand more and more.

[Admiral Yi]

Who would have thought that the party of Thatcher would reach a point where the only solution they can imagine to a problem is to just subsidise demand more and more.

Seems consistent to me.  Thatcher' revolution was about transforming the UK into an ownership society.

[Sheilbh]

Seems consistent to me.  Thatcher' revolution was about transforming the UK into an ownership society.

Through privatisation of housing stock which seems like a classic supply side policy - not constantly subsidising demand because steps to increase reforms would require taking on vested interests that are the base of the Tory party.

One other interesting thing about the by-elections is that while there were local conditions, one of them was in the Green Belt after Starmer had said he'd be open to building on it. The Tories ran a very pro-Green Belt NIMBY campaign (I think possibly trying to see if it could be like ULEZ for them in outer London). Unlike in Uxbridge the local candidate said he's a YIMBY, as did Starmer in an interview - and Labour still won.

Separately on possibe emerging consensus-ish as well as the centre-right/centre-left think tank world view on planning (which only Labour is picking up), I thought this was interesting on a big report with contributions from lots of grandees on the importance of fiscal devolution:

Regions may need to raise more tax to level up Britain, says Michael Gove
Steven Swinford, Political Editor
Monday October 23 2023, 12.01am, The Times

Michael Gove and George Osborne have argued that more tax and spending powers should be devolved amid warnings that successive governments have failed to reduce inequalities.

A new report by King's College London and Harvard Kennedy School interviewed 93 political figures, including three former prime ministers and four former chancellors.

It found that successive governments had "failed in their goal to reduce inequalities". The report said a "persistent bias of spending" towards London and the South East was "driving geographical differences". Hopes that the success and productivity of London would "trickle down" to the regions had failed to transpire.

Gove, the levelling-up secretary, who was interviewed for the report, said that ultimately the government would have to "move further" with fiscal devolution to redress imbalances, empowering local areas to raise some taxes and control public spending.

"I think that it's a necessary part of the success, or eventual success," he said. "We will have to move further in that direction. There has been, during the 1980s, everything from rate capping through to the poll tax, an erosion of the tax base of local government. Then there's the straightforward tension between equity and a further devolution, though it can be resolved in some cases, and also the institutional resistance of the Treasury. Those need to be overcome. That is the direction but ... it will take some time to get there."

Osborne, the former chancellor, said he wished he had gone further. "I now would be quite bold and do more in the tax space. We spent a lot of my time trying to devolve income tax powers to Scotland. I think we spent too much time on that. We could have come up with something clever and eye-catching in the local income tax space without threatening the central revenues of the government. It was probably a bridge too far."

Osborne also expressed concern that public service reform had "completely disappeared" from the political agenda.

He said: "No one's got any ideas for welfare reform; no one's got any ideas for education reform ... When I was working in Downing Street in 1997, it wasn't just Tony Blair, it was Gordon Brown and his team and there was a sense that all the new ideas in British politics were coming from the opposition ... Today there is nothing. This government's been in office for 12 years. It's time to have the opposition paint the picture."

Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court, a former permanent secretary to the Treasury, said: "The amount of tax-raising powers which have been devolved, until relatively recently, have been very small. I think in the end if you want to transform Britain you do need to devolve more tax-raising powers.

"It's striking that things have been devolved to Manchester in some areas that haven't been devolved to London, but tax powers have not. I think tax does lie at the heart of this."

Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, said: "The next big step in this journey is: are they going to give us some form of tax-retaining or [tax-] raising powers? The deal would then be, 'You have that cash, you live within it. If you spend it in a way in which your citizens don't want, you're responsible.' "

Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said there were limitations to how far governments could go in addressing regional imbalances. "Go back a hundred years, probably: it's always been the case that London has been significantly in advance. You've got to be careful of setting yourself a goal that may never be realised."

Sir John Major, the former Tory prime minister, said: "There was a strong belief beginning in the 1980s ... [that] the wealth generated by the economy ... would gradually trickle down ... and everybody would benefit ... it did not trickle down sufficiently to those at the bottom of the heap."

Writing in The Times, Ed Balls, a former shadow chancellor who was involved in the report, said: "What we need is a cross-party plan that our leaders can stick to. It won't be easy."

Obviously Osborne was the guy who capped council tax rises (without a loca referendum) and neither the Treasury he ran, or the one Balls was part of, were particularly decentralising. But it's interesting that they've both ended up here and - as with development and with civil service reform the Treasury has been identified as a key obstacle.

Blair's line increases my view that he's basically an accelerationist in a lot of ways There's things where he is interesting and things where he has fairly fixed views. But on other issues whether it was globalisation in the 90s or tech now I think a lot of his views are basically that trends in the current moment are actually permanent and inevitable. So the best thing government can do is push them further and faster in the UK and - at best - mitigate negative consequences.

While that came out from Ed Balls and KCL, interesting that the Fabians released a report on basically the same issue at the same time - with this handy demonstration of just how little power local authorities have over tax or spend issues:


Interested to see what Sue Gray proposes on civil service reform and I hope Starmer doesn't dump the "take back control" idea around more devolution of powers to local government. But it needs to include fiscal powers as well as powers to do things differently rather than just passing more responsibilities for services to local government without any ability to change funding or how they deliver the service.

And I think this is all connected. Local councils and local councillors won't necessarily see the upside of development which they can then spend on better services, or reducing local taxes - instead they just get the hassle. But it requires the Treasury to accept someone else making decisions. They could also spend it on economic policies in their region that would strengthen growth further (and their budget) - I'm always struck by Tom Forth's point that private sector R&D is far more tilted to the North. It's the public sector investment that is very heavily based in the South - similar to his point that many of the official business cases for transport infrastructure in the South (that gets funded) has a lower CBR than similar projects in the North (that don't). I don't want to say it's all because the Treasury is massively centralised and all the civil servants live in London - but I don't think it's totally not that

[Grey Fox]

Before cars, was the english population NIMBYist?

[crazy canuck]

And on wasted opportunities for the Tories - I get that this is just a cross-tab etc etc. But this Canadian polling is really striking as Tories, in the equivalent age group here are polling within the margin of error:

Polling Canada
@CanadianPolling
Federal vote intention among 18-29 Year Olds:

CPC: 40%
NDP: 24%
LPC: 21%
GPC: 7%
BQ: 5%
PPC: 2%

Abacus Data / October 10, 2023 / Online

Obviously there are other factors but just really struck given the emphasis the Canadian Conservatives have put on housing and the housing crisis in Canada.

I think there's lessons there which may apply to the Tories presiding over a housing crisis here. But I think it's also a warning for Labour that they need to deliver on housing because if the Tories have any sense (and they do have an appetite for power), this is something they'll focus on post-election. Lots on the right are very interested in Canada right now. As I say it always reminds me of the unions in the late 60s-70s when all parties knew there was an issue, Labour couldn't agree to moderate reforms - so they got Thatcher's reforms (and Thatcher also initially won young voters). Having failed to deliver on housing from a right-wing perspective, the Tories are now at risk of Labour addressing it in a way they really don't like but that'll win Labour support from a generation of voters - and if Labour don't deliver, vice versa

I am not sure it has anything to do with housing.  To understand why Trudeau is so unpopular now - including the youngest voting demographic, you need to look back at the promises he made to that same demographic to get elected back in 2015.  A strong argument can be made he did not follow through on any of them except for the legalization of cannabis products.

The young are good at detecting a fake and they have concluded that is exactly what Trudeau is.  I don't think the Liberals stand a chance in the next election with him as their leader.

If people in the UK want to draw any conclusions, they need to take how profoundly unpopular Trudeau has become.

[Josquius]

Before cars, was the english population NIMBYist?

I'd say no. Some amazing vandalism in the mid 20th century and especially the 19th.

[Grey Fox]

Before cars, was the english population NIMBYist?

I'd say no. Some amazing vandalism in the mid 20th century and especially the 19th.

Interesting. It is my opinion that NIMBYism is a direct consequence of car culture.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting. It is my opinion that NIMBYism is a direct consequence of car culture.

What do you think the link is?

In the UK, I think there might be a link. As Jos says I think the mid-20th century city planners were a big part of the problem. It's also why I'm not sure trying to social engineer Brits into liking flats is a great idea because I think it would replicate many of the problems of the 60s urban planner and probably prompt similar resistance.

It's also true that a lot of NIMBYs in the UK - I think the same is true in the US in cities like New York and San Francisco - have a noble origin story. There were huge, sweeping, radical proposals to absolutely transform Britain's cities in the mid-century and the car was at the centre of them - there's a book to be written on post-war Labour councils' views on car transport. I think there was a combination of good motivations like slum clearances, like building infrastructure for the future combined with the mid-century arrogance of architects and planners deciding what people should want, plus a vision of the future that, like all visions of the future/progress, was false. It's always different than expected

The modern conservation area starts with, say, a campaign led by the poet laureate to prevent the demolition of St Pancras station - which I think we'd all agree was a good thing:


There was a similar campaign to stop motorways basically running through the middle of London - though there are still shadows of it. The Westway and fortress like blocks of flats in Brixton that were designed to be sound-proof from a motorway that was never built:

[Josquius]

I can see it coming from a variety of angles.
In the UK we have the big problem that we pursued American style urban design without having the space for it- all well and good to make vast sprawling 10 lane motorways and scattered suburbs and big box stores when you've an empty continent to exploit, many American cities are truly insane in terms of the land area they cover.
In the UK meanwhile you can't get too far with this before you start butting into other people's business.

There's also the more international trend that car-centric design destroys social cohesion and boosts toxic individualism. The connection to your community means nothing if you just hop in your car and drive to your office then drive to the supermarket then home rather than actually having to actually interact with the world around you as you travel through it. You have little appreciation for the community as a whole and its needs though become fiercely defensive of your spots, like that scabby patch of grass where your dog does its business.

Those London flats look like the Byker Wall, also made for the same reason and with largely the same outcome- there's an over-engineered dual carriageway next to them that opens on a disastrous accident spot roundabout

[crazy canuck]

I think it has to do with economics and class. At least here. 

The folks who owned single-family dwellings in nice expensive neighborhoods  don't want to be disrupted by multifamily dwellings, or the construction of mass transit near or in their neighbourhoods.

There is a correlation to car ownership there, of course. But I don't think that is the driving factor.

[Sheilbh]

Those London flats look like the Byker Wall, also made for the same reason and with largely the same outcome- there's an over-engineered dual carriageway next to them that opens on a disastrous accident spot roundabout

In this case it just backs out onto a normal London road - and one that's actually, since then, become quite cool with Brixton Market which houses lots of restaurants and bars etc. But in the 1960s/70s looked to be in terminal decline, plus no-one needs to live near a market anymore etc.

To nick that Cameron line, the thing that always worries me looking at YIMBYism and my own views and the post-war planners is that they were the future once

[Josquius]

Those London flats look like the Byker Wall, also made for the same reason and with largely the same outcome- there's an over-engineered dual carriageway next to them that opens on a disastrous accident spot roundabout

In this case it just backs out onto a normal London road - and one that's actually, since then, become quite cool with Brixton Market which houses lots of restaurants and bars etc. But in the 1960s/70s looked to be in terminal decline, plus no-one needs to live near a market anymore etc.

To nick that Cameron line, the thing that always worries me looking at YIMBYism and my own views and the post-war planners is that they were the future once

True, though worth noting those post war planners were imagining something new and never seen before.
Cars were the hot new thing and nobody understood how they'd work in practice, the concept of induced demand, etc...

New urbanism is more about learning from the past and looking to imitate the success stories and positive aspects whilst ironing out the mistakes.
There's little utopian dabbling with something new and trying to create the future (definitely not on a large scale)... Rather its about trying to copy tried and tested success stories.

Rather than "We are going to create a sci fi city of the future" (NEOM...) its "Look at Groningen and Freiburg im Breisgau and how they solved these problems and became such nice places"

[Grey Fox]

More people either bring masstransit infrastructure that reduces the place of cars or they bring more traffic on the existing car infrastructure.

Two things NIMBYies don't want to see.

[Tamas]

Hot take by the resigned Muslim city councillor lady: Starmer not condemning Israel in wake of the Hamas terror attack is a betrayal of all British Muslims: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/24/labour-gaza-british-muslims-starmer-betray

My favourite snippet:

The Israel and Palestine conflict is not fundamentally a Muslim or Jewish issue, it is a human rights issue, but the conflict disproportionately affects Muslims and Jews across the world and here in the UK, where people live in increasing fear of hate crimes and for our wellbeing and safety. For Muslims of different national backgrounds, the human rights situation in Palestine is a unifying issue and this is why the resignation of Muslim councillors and activists, and the demoralising of potential Labour voters, really matters.