UK General Election 2024

[Yew]

R/e the need for affordable housing, over the last 20-30 years we have allowed megastores and factories to be built; the likes of Tesco and Amazon but those are just two names out of dozens. That's using up land productively, but that land also comes with huge car-parks etc. The space ABOVE is totally unused. I would like to see any new developments have affordable flats and apartments above these mega structures, three or four storeys high if necessary, and if possible build above these massive car-parks that are already there. Wouldn't necessarily solve our housing crisis but it's a start.

Will you be voulenteering to live in the flat above the Amazon warehouse, with deliveries, dispatches and other work going on through the night?

 

[Howardh]

Agree with the jist of this but you have to recall that living above a place getting 24 hour delivery and dispatch lorries is not that appealing to potential residents of said accommodation who might want some peace and quiet when they themselves are not working.

Agree with the 24-hr deliveries not appealing, but I would envisage for large retail businesses (Tesco, M+S etc) there is only one delivery point so the dwellings could be situated away and shielded/soundproofed, the archetects would have to deal with that. With logistics firms with 20-odd loading bays on a 24-hr use, then clearly flats above that would be inappropriate.

I note that in Bolton we are building affordable housing within the town centre, which is noisy from, say, 7am to midnight (and beyond!).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2024 ==

Will you be voulenteering to live in the flat above the Amazon warehouse, with deliveries, dispatches and other work going on through the night?

See above!

 

[BrianW]

Listing should be a more serious process than it currently is (and not weaponised to prevent demolition or changes at the last minute as sometimes happens), and it should come with funding. If someone else wants to tell you that you need to maintain your building in a certain way then they should be required to pay for it, for example the red tape around replacing windows with energy efficient triple glazing which mean you can't just bung some PVC frames in as anyone else could.

Plymouth Civic Centre stands out here. Got listed after demolition was announced. Locals consider it an eyesore.

Listing is a considered process, detailed on a gov.uk website, and those of local authorities.

Plymouth Civic Centre was designed and built as part of Abercrombie's plan for rebuilding the city after Hitler had done his bit: its listing details are at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1392038

It's recent development history is well-documented in its Wikipedia entry; and the local authority's plans and actions regarding Armada Way have gained much (if not complete?) published!

The tower block at Plymouth Station, known as Inter-City House has been recently repurposed as part of the University of Plymouth.

One could argue without end regarding whether Plymouth (or Coventry, or London's Docklands, or anywhere?) would be better without planning, or local government, or planners, or developers, ... you decide.

In UK, you have opportunity of a kind to have say if not your way next month, and you can contact and lobby your MP and Councillors at any time; and/or vent on RailForum!

 

[The Ham]

R/e the need for affordable housing, over the last 20-30 years we have allowed megastores and factories to be built; the likes of Tesco and Amazon but those are just two names out of dozens. That's using up land productively, but that land also comes with huge car-parks etc. The space ABOVE is totally unused. I would like to see any new developments have affordable flats and apartments above these mega structures, three or four storeys high if necessary, and if possible build above these massive car-parks that are already there. Wouldn't necessarily solve our housing crisis but it's a start.

At others have pointed out there's potential issues with this, however as you've said in reply there's things which can be done to mitigate against them.

One thing which would help us that often the big car parks are only full for a fairly limited time during the week, often housing isn't likely to have it's peak parking demand at the same times as sous or office.

I once worked in an office which shared a car park with a block of flats, most of the residents weren't there when we were and we went there when they were. This meant that during the evening visitors should use the spaces allocated to the office, but there was enough space during the day for us to park. There was only one time it was nearly an issue, when someone was ill but they just moved their car a bit later than normal (probably about 9:30 rather than 8:00) but that was it.

Shops are a bit harder, as they may clash at the weekend, bit there's lots of examples of town centre developments with flats where it does work.

The other thing which is worth doing is solar car parks, where there's solar panels built over parking spaces (creating shelter for the cars, but not needing to build solar farms on green spaces - although there's some evidence of solar grazing also working well - where livestock graze under solar panels).

 

[AlterEgo]

I just want a continuation of the planning laws we've been used to - nothing more.

That is exactly what is constraining Britain's ability to grow and thrive, and what will make delivering a liberal agenda (which requires a larger economy and higher taxation) very difficult.

You live a poor and miserable country which is getting poorer and more miserable, and this, more than anything else, is driving the antipathy towards liberalism and minority equality. The spectre of the far right doesn't generally show itself in places where people are secure, housed, optimistic, and can make ends meet.

Britain has to build more things. This will take a generation or more to achieve.

The problem with that is that buildings don't just impact the owner: They often impact many of the people who already live locally. Build something ugly and you make the community less pleasant for everyone else or reduce the value of nearby houses.

Oh no! An ugly building, how awful. Is the ugly or boring building housing people on the precarious edge of society or providing a community service? If so I don't care. I just really do not care. I have been lots of places in the world that wouldn't be make nice picture on a packet of shortbread but the people there have a higher quality of life - and are often wealthier, happier, more productive, and having children and families.

Build too many houses without enough other infrastructure and then the people who live there will struggle to access services. Build something that is inaccessible to public transport and you lock in more pollution and congestion for the nearest town. That's why we arrange that you need planning permission and for the local authority to approve significant building plans.

It isn't. Our planning laws are mostly based on a pathological fear of cities becoming larger and impacting the "countryside" (for that, read: mostly industrial farming, which is inefficient in Britain anyway)

The planning system is a huge brake on economic development. It needs major reform because major projects take far too long from concept to completion. Cambridge South station is a good example: 5 years of planning for something that will take less than 2 years to build.

Absolutely, and look at HS2. You can't whang on about "oh what about the infrastructure linking these new buildings and developments?" when even THAT is too difficult to get approved.

This country is very unwell and suffers severely from Museum Syndrome. Everything takes so bloody long and meanwhile other economies outstrip us.

 

[brad465]

Britain isn't a museum! You are a conservative by saying this.

Very conservative again! I'd rather a facility or a home existed and was unappealing than objecting to building new stuff because it's "eww".

Tradition is an excuse to keep lazy thinkers in line, and is something this country very much indulges in. It's why we still use the crumbling ruin (in more ways than one) that is the Palace of Westminster, rather than a modern Parliament and debating chamber with the archaic division lobby voting method. That's before we get onto all the pomp associated with the Monarchy.

That is what the UK needs to do. We need to switch out of low pay low productivity jobs and into high pay high productivity jobs. In particular we need to stop the delusion that we can all get rich by selling each other beer and cake. The place I would eliminate jobs is the so called hospitality industry, there are lots of people in the hospitality industry who could and should be doing things that are much more productive.

Add to that social media influencers, vloggers, etc.

 

[Energy]

Intensification is another possibility- more, smaller dwellings on the same area, Bungalows/ two storey houses become three/four storey flats; 10/20minute walkable cities ...

I honestly think the future is realising that houses should be 3+ bedrooms and anything smaller are flats.

We still see too many 2 bed homes on new builds, a lot of which only have 1 bedroom used and a garden which may be mown every so often. Even the ones with a swing, trampoline and not much else could easily be served by a well equipped community garden.

 

[Blindtraveler]

As someone who's lived in flats pretty much all his life since leaving home, I can tell you that this is not the aspiration of many a flat dweller. We do not want to live in flats permanently and I'm sorry but I will not support anyone who goes for this type of idea. If The covid pandemic taught us one thing. It was that every property having direct access to its own little bit of outside space. Even if this is a balcony is absolutely essential

 

[telstarbox]

In London new flats are already required to have balcony or garden space so that can be rolled out elsewhere.

 

[Energy]

In London new flats are already required to have balcony or garden space so that can be rolled out elsewhere.

Indeed, requiring a small balcony and a shared garden space isn't unreasonable.

 

[DC1989]

They really need to bring in zoning to replace what they have. If you meet x,y,z criteria you can build. No need to spend vast fortunes to have a couple of random councillors turn you down despite doing everything the planning officer said

I'm sure MPs would quite like to have this issue taken from them. Locally they often have no choice but to pretend to be against developments.

 

[WesternLancer]

Listing is a considered process, detailed on a gov.uk website, and those of local authorities.

Plymouth Civic Centre was designed and built as part of Abercrombie's plan for rebuilding the city after Hitler had done his bit: its listing details are at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1392038

It's recent development history is well-documented in its Wikipedia entry; and the local authority's plans and actions regarding Armada Way have gained much (if not complete?) published!

The tower block at Plymouth Station, known as Inter-City House has been recently repurposed as part of the University of Plymouth.

One could argue without end regarding whether Plymouth (or Coventry, or London's Docklands, or anywhere?) would be better without planning, or local government, or planners, or developers, ... you decide.

In UK, you have opportunity of a kind to have say if not your way next month, and you can contact and lobby your MP and Councillors at any time; and/or vent on RailForum!

and it's worth noting that before austerity (and in some ways well before!) grants for listed building owners to help them meet the higher maintenance costs mentioned in the post you were responding to, were more prevalent than they are now - so your point about having a say next month is a fair point to make!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Thank goodness RailForums hasn't set up a political party!

 

[WesternLancer]

They really need to bring in zoning to replace what they have. If you meet x,y,z criteria you can build. No need to spend vast fortunes to have a couple of random councillors turn you down despite doing everything the planning officer said

This is a myth and I'm afraid a not very well informed comment - in that scenario it would likely be turned over on Appeal by the Planning Inspectorate- with the costs awarded to the applicant against the council - so the council has a strong incentive not to do this as a lost appeal means a big bill in the post

I'm sure MPs would quite like to have this issue taken from them. Locally they often have no choice but to pretend to be against developments.

Well they have had it removed from them - as it's a matter for the local council (and the local councillors who are the councils equivalent of MPs) - does not prevent MPs opining on the matter to seek votes, but they should explain that a planning application is not a matter they would get to decide.

 

[HSTEd]

That is what the UK needs to do. We need to switch out of low pay low productivity jobs and into high pay high productivity jobs. In particular we need to stop the delusion that we can all get rich by selling each other beer and cake. The place I would eliminate jobs is the so called hospitality industry, there are lots of people in the hospitality industry who could and should be doing things that are much more productive.

Well large parts of the hospitality industry is already dying, labour costs and other shocks are killing it.
However, things like restaurants have important division-of-labour benefits, in that they save vast amounts of labour in efficient small scale food preparation.

The planning system is a huge brake on economic development. It needs major reform because major projects take far too long from concept to completion. Cambridge South station is a good example: 5 years of planning for something that will take less than 2 years to build.

The problem is that any system that allows local politics to have a major impact will suffer the same capture problems as the current one.
We have a huge chunk of the electorate that will never permit their house prices to fall and thus have a vested interest in ensuring the current development crisis continues.,

The bit that worries me the most about this is capacity to build. The UK economy needs new capacity for construction raw materials, such as steel and bricks, and people with the right skills, more of the people currently building Cambridge South.

Well steel is a commonly available global commodity now, and bricks are a very labour intensive way to build anything.
We need to adopt techniques that minimise the amount of skilled construction labour.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Because I believe that the Government should, as far as possible, represent the will of a majority of the electorate. Not just a minority and, even when parties are not in Government themselves representation in Parliament as part of the Opposition (be it the official or otherwise) is a valuable thing. It is bonkers that in 2005 Labour won 35.2% of the vote (9.5m votes) and got 355 seats and a majority of 66 seats whilst the Tories won 32.4% of the vote (8.7m votes) and got 198 seats. 65% of the electorate voted for Parties other than Labour and yet they formed the Government. Bonkers. Or 2015, UKIP win 12.6% of the vote (3.8m votes) and win one seat whilst the SNP win 4.7% of the vote (1.4m votes) and gain 56 seats. Madness.

Madness indeed.

I don't suggest that it isn't democracy, but it isn't healthy democracy.

100% agreed.

 

[HSTEd]

We still see too many 2 bed homes on new builds, a lot of which only have 1 bedroom used and a garden which may be mown every so often. Even the ones with a swing, trampoline and not much else could easily be served by a well equipped community garden.

Community gardens come with rules that make them very restricted in use though.
For example the one near where I live does not permit unsupervised children, barbeques, alcohol, music or being there after dark.

They are a terrible substitute for a garden.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2024 ==

As someone who's lived in flats pretty much all his life since leaving home, I can tell you that this is not the aspiration of many a flat dweller. We do not want to live in flats permanently and I'm sorry but I will not support anyone who goes for this type of idea. If The covid pandemic taught us one thing. It was that every property having direct access to its own little bit of outside space. Even if this is a balcony is absolutely essential

The other problem that is pending with high-rise flats and the like is the Grenfell Enquiry.

There is a huge drive by campaigners to impose the requirement for personalised evacuation plans for anyone who self identifies as unable to evacuate.
The requirements to develop and maintain such plans and the costs associated with them are likely to render high rise construction impractical.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2024 ==

The problem with that is that buildings don't just impact the owner: They often impact many of the people who already live locally. Build something ugly and you make the community less pleasant for everyone else or reduce the value of nearby houses. Build too many houses without enough other infrastructure and then the people who live there will struggle to access services.

Does having an ugly building on your street truly impact society more than having large numbers of people living in cramped, overcrowded or otherwise inadequate housing?
The housing crisis has a real cost that taints literally millions of lives.

Building housing itself does not significant impact the requirements for services, increasing the population does.
We are now at the point where the people are already in the city, they are just living in overcrowded HMOs or sleeping in 'converted' sheds.

 

[AlterEgo]

As someone who's lived in flats pretty much all his life since leaving home, I can tell you that this is not the aspiration of many a flat dweller. We do not want to live in flats permanently and I'm sorry but I will not support anyone who goes for this type of idea. If The covid pandemic taught us one thing. It was that every property having direct access to its own little bit of outside space. Even if this is a balcony is absolutely essential

Indeed, hence it should be easier and cheaper, and much less restrictive, for actual homes to be built. Your quality of life will increase!

 

[Yew]

Thank goodness RailForums hasn't set up a political party!

Because the "HS" in High Speed 2, would actually mean "Heritage Steam"?

 

[BrianW]

Well large parts of the hospitality industry is already dying, labour costs and other shocks are killing it.
However, things like restaurants have important division-of-labour benefits, in that they save vast amounts of labour in efficient small scale food preparation.


The problem is that any system that allows local politics to have a major impact will suffer the same capture problems as the current one.
We have a huge chunk of the electorate that will never permit their house prices to fall and thus have a vested interest in ensuring the current development crisis continues.,


Well steel is a commonly available global commodity now, and bricks are a very labour intensive way to build anything.
We need to adopt techniques that minimise the amount of skilled construction labour.

People are killing the hospitaliity industry; they won't pay for properly-paid staff, prefering to eat at home, courtesy of poorly paid deliverers.

People want to be able to extend their own homes without interference; thay do not want their neighbour's extension to be allowed to overshadow or spoil their view.

Steel and its transport is energy-intensive; bricks similarly. We tried unskilled construction in the 1960s- we got concrete-paneled Ronan Point, which progressively collapsed in a gas explosion.

Community gardens come with rules that make them very restricted in use though.
For example the one near where I live does not permit unsupervised children, barbeques, alcohol, music or being there after dark.

They are a terrible substitute for a garden.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2024 ==


The other problem that is pending with high-rise flats and the like is the Grenfell Enquiry.

There is a huge drive by campaigners to impose the requirement for personalised evacuation plans for anyone who self identifies as unable to evacuate.
The requirements to develop and maintain such plans and the costs associated with them are likely to render high rise construction impractical.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2024 ==



Does having an ugly building on your street truly impact society more than having large numbers of people living in cramped, overcrowded or otherwise inadequate housing?
The housing crisis has a real cost that taints literally millions of lives.

Building housing itself does not significant impact the requirements for services, increasing the population does.
We are now at the point where the people are already in the city, they are just living in overcrowded HMOs or sleeping in 'converted' sheds.

Anything 'communal' (gardens, TV, carshare etc) requires management, maintenance and fees.

The Grenfell Tower disaster was SEVEN years ago last Friday; we still don't have the Inquiry findings published- awaited in September. Should disabled folk be expected to perish in a fire? No.

Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. Building, Housing, HMO and Planning standards are in the hands of the electorate. Developers pay Section 106 'bribes' to get planning permission- councils decide the amount and on what it should be spent. Water and sewage are paid for by ....??

 

[HSTEd]

People are killing the hospitaliity industry; they won't pay for properly-paid staff, prefering to eat at home, courtesy of poorly paid deliverers.

In-person hospitality is still more labour intensive than delivery staff.
If delivery staff conditions improved it would still win due to higher utilisation and other efficiencies.

The margins of in-person hospitality are already extremely thin, in order to allow wages to rise high enough to attract people to do the jobs the cost of hospitality services would have to rise far above what the market will bear;.
Pubs and such already only function if they can achieve very large economies of scale, hence Wetherspoons.

Steel and its transport is energy-intensive; bricks similarly.

On the contrary, deep sea transport of non perishable goods is extremely energy efficient.
It takes less energy to move an item from Shanghai to Felixstowe than it takes to get it from Felixstowe to its destination in the UK.

The energy embodied in the manufacture of these materials is of similar magnitude wherever it comes from.
And steel has the advantage of not requiring a vast class of manual labourers to build buildings with.

We tried unskilled construction in the 1960s- we got concrete-paneled Ronan Point, which progressively collapsed in a gas explosion.

Panel building like Ronon Point is only a small part of the progressive deskilling of construction that has taken place for centuries.
Indeed, I don't see many plumbers or electricians soldering much any more!

We must not let mistakes in the past interfere with the enormous benefits that such methods provide.

Additionally, if we just pump out prefabricated bungalows the risks of structural failure are decidedly minimal.

The Grenfell Tower disaster was SEVEN years ago last Friday; we still don't have the Inquiry findings published- awaited in September. Should disabled folk be expected to perish in a fire? No.

No, we should not expect them to perish, but we should not try to get around the fact that the costs of providing such plans for all self-identifying residents will be enormous.
It will fundamentally change the economics of housing construction and render large scale use of tall buildings for housing impractical.
The liability and the costs of avoiding it will simply be too large for anyone to bear.

 

[Purple Train]

There needs to be a balance. I know I say this far too much!

Close to my local station, there is a large new development that runs to five or six storeys - of "luxury flats". I don't particularly think that that's the best use of a street corner plot in the commuter belt, but no doubt the developers know best. Adopting a brutalist (small b) approach is short-sighted, in my opinion, not just for ugliness but for practicality. The appeal of brutalism is in how cheap it is: one only has to look at the issue with RAAC to realise what the danger with those buildings might be. One of British architecture's historical strengths has been producing elegant incidental infrastructure: take the telephone box, for instance. Everything was designed with care. I don't mean, by that, that we should go full-on William Morris with the new towns if Labour get in, but that it shouldn't be designed on the cheap just for the sake of immediate strength in numbers. Cheap is not necessarily nasty, and I can see the appeal of certain Brutalist structures - Plymouth Civic Centre, for instance - but I would rather the new towns were well- and thoughtfully-constructed and integrated rather than being thrown up in three seconds flat. And less-beautiful buildings do have an effect - in my experience, generally when it's raining! - and even just a lick of paint can make the difference. Function and form can co-exist perfectly well.

 

[HSTEd]

There needs to be a balance. I know I say this far too much!

Close to my local station, there is a large new development that runs to five or six storeys - of "luxury flats". I don't particularly think that that's the best use of a street corner plot in the commuter belt, but no doubt the developers know best. Adopting a brutalist (small b) approach is short-sighted, in my opinion, not just for ugliness but for practicality. The appeal of brutalism is in how cheap it is: one only has to look at the issue with RAAC to realise what the danger with those buildings might be. One of British architecture's historical strengths has been producing elegant incidental infrastructure: take the telephone box, for instance. Everything was designed with care. I don't mean, by that, that we should go full-on William Morris with the new towns if Labour get in, but that it shouldn't be designed on the cheap just for the sake of immediate strength in numbers. Cheap is not necessarily nasty, and I can see the appeal of certain Brutalist structures - Plymouth Civic Centre, for instance - but I would rather the new towns were well- and thoughtfully-constructed and integrated rather than being thrown up in three seconds flat. And less-beautiful buildings do have an effect - in my experience, generally when it's raining! - and even just a lick of paint can make the difference. Function and form can co-exist perfectly well.

The problem is we now have a housing crisis that has resulted in a housing shortage roughly equivalent to 15% of the entire national housing stock. We have 28 million housing units and we need something like 33 million units (Shelter figures etc).

The distortions from this are one of the major reasons for the current awful economic performance. Every year that this distortion continues knocks many billions of pounds a year off GDP. The cumulative cost in lost wealth is enormous and continuously growing.

It would be nice if we could sit around for ages debating the benefits of such things, but that will result in nothing being done for years or decades. Indeed it is highly likely that the anti-development lobby will weaponise such discussions to ensure nothing is ever built. Meanwhile huge numbers of lives will be blighted by substandard or otherwise inadequate housing and economic growth (essential for maintaining living standards through the demographic transition) will remain awful.

Large numbers of people, including many of my colleagues, are being required to pour away half or more of their salary on accomodation, this is a national outrage and the only thing we can do that will solve this is pump out five million housing units as fast as humanly possible.
If that results in a drab urban and suburban environment made up of copies of a handful of prefabricated house designs, so be it.

 

[Energy]

Community gardens come with rules that make them very restricted in use though.
For example the one near where I live does not permit unsupervised children, barbeques, alcohol, music or being there after dark.

They are a terrible substitute for a garden.

Unfortunately, this is going to depend on the garden. I'd hope that anyone in charge would realise that no unsupervised children is a rather silly rule.

They aren't a substitute for someone who utilises their garden, but for someone who might mow the lawn and sit outside every so often but not much more.

The other problem that is pending with high-rise flats and the like is the Grenfell Enquiry.

There is a huge drive by campaigners to impose the requirement for personalised evacuation plans for anyone who self identifies as unable to evacuate.
The requirements to develop and maintain such plans and the costs associated with them are likely to render high rise construction impractical.

Is high rise needed? 3-4 stories seem adequate to me and most commercial buildings handle fine with fireproof stairwells and refuge zones for disabled people.

Panel building like Ronon Point is only a small part of the progressive deskilling of construction that has taken place for centuries.
Indeed, I don't see many plumbers or electricians soldering much any more!

We must not let mistakes in the past interfere with the enormous benefits that such methods provide.

Pre-made insulated wall sections is already common with Passivhaus. I'd like to see UK new builds towards this standard. Passivhaus is currently only 10% more expensive, and this would go down with scale.

The outside of buildings would then be covered with wood paneling, brick slips, etc.

 

[HSTEd]

Is high rise needed? 3-4 stories seem adequate to me and most commercial buildings handle fine with fireproof stairwells and refuge zones for disabled people.

Whilst the government consultation was only for buildings over 18m, a lot of campaigners are already pushing for it to be extended to all blocks of flats regardless of height.
I don't think it is possible to exclude that it will be extended to all flats given the level of public outrage that will be generated when the final report of the inquiry is released.

 

[nw1]

Back to the election, and am I the only one who actually thinks the campaign is a bit dull?

Aside from the odd point of note (Sunak's D-Day mess-up, Farage's entry to the fray, the single outlier poll which showed Farage ahead of the Tories) it seems to be awfully quiet most of the time, especially considering the likely biggest change to the make-up of Parliament since 2010.

Few canvassers and few people putting up election posters. That said, round here one house has gone so far as to fly a Reform UK flag from their roof. (Oddly, the same house had a Slovakia flag flying for the last couple of weeks and has had a Swiss flag in the past, not sure what message that's trying to communicate).

 

[HSTEd]

Back to the election, and am I the only one who actually thinks the campaign is a bit dull?

There doesn't seem to be any kind of energy in the campaigns at all.

I think the population is rather more cynical than they have been

 

[nw1]

There doesn't seem to be any kind of energy in the campaigns at all.

I think the population is rather more cynical than they have been

Perhaps, though for some of us it will just be a relief to (hopefully) see this particular iteration of the Tory Party out of power.

For various reasons I am familiar with the campaigns which went on for the EU elections in one of the continental countries. Even though they were just EU elections, and not national ones, there seemed to be far more energy expended than we are appearing to do here on our own national election!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Vote Reform = Scrap HS2.
£25 billion in the kitty over 5 years, and about 30 miles of newly built but unused tunnels to grow mushrooms in.

The only mention of transport (not specifically rail) is to focus on the north "to accelerate already announced infrastructure".
I think this policy took them 5 minutes in a pub somewhere with some envelopes lying about.

I think the aim is not to propose a realistic programme for government, but to develop a list of single issues to beat the next government with, beginning with immigration.

Transport and Utilities Infrastructure

www.reformparty.uk

 

[AlterEgo]

There doesn't seem to be any kind of energy in the campaigns at all.

I think the population is rather more cynical than they have been

It is extremely dull fare throughout. Sunak's camp has ceased doing...anything at all really, after days of consecutive blunders in the opening part of the campaign.

Labour have one of the least inspiring, energy-deficient, turgid campaigns I've ever seen - so much so it has convinced me not to lend them my vote in my constituency. And I personally know two Labour MP candidates - one of whom is going to win a very safe seat!

The Lib Dems started with a lot of exuberance and frankly a more compelling vision for a different Britain - at least different from the rotten duopoly we have - but, having decided to vote for them after seeing their manifesto, I am really not that engaged with their campaign any more.

The Greens are an unserious party.

Reform are providing the only eye-catching media at the moment, as they invent new and different ways of discriminating against minorities, and discover innovative ways of pretending to be libertarian while exhibiting a Machiavellian bent for extreme authoritarianism. They have no real desire to be in government or inherit any of the problems left over.