Sidelights on housing in Britain

In two parts … one here, t’other at the new N.O. ... both come from the TDS article by Alan Bunce. The writer of the article is described thus:

Alan Bunce is the Editor of regional property website Thames Tap. This article was first published on the U.K. Property Forums website. You can gauge the tone of that site by going there.

The tone seems, to me, to be in the same vein as, say, the Taxpayers’ Alliance. If then, mild-mannered publications take this tone, quite at odds with the extremism shown by gummint on both sides of the aisle over the decades, we do get to the question of how on earth anyone of this quality of understanding of a nation’s needs were firstly parachuted in, how they were even voted in, and how one lot can form govt with less than 20% of the vote.

Quickly skipping over that elephant in the room which, if one mentions it, the stasi come for you and you're in the slammer, missy or matey, we can cast our gaze more widely at, say, ASLEF and ask how the hell did what just happened … happen?

There’s something rotten in the state of Britain … but we knew that. Anyway, to today's quote:

Nowadays everyone wants brownfield land built on and I’ve little doubt they’ll soon want Grey Belt land built on too. Once that’s all gone, they’ll need to think hard about another colour with negative connotations.

While these policies will likely get houses built, the Government’s emboldened status, backed by its huge majority, is being reflected in the approach of developers and their representatives.
Take a look at the July 9 meeting of Thurrock Council’s planning committee and note the tone of the applicants in each of two proposed, major housing developments.

These two three-minute speeches can be seen in the webcast here starting at 29m 23s and 1h 16m 58s.

Rather than try to persuade the committee, representatives from Mulberry Strategic Land and Grasslands cared little what the councillors thought and basically challenged the committee to refuse their schemes. Their basic theme was ‘the Government is on our side’.

As it happens both were refused and committee chair Cllr Michael Fletcher (a Labour member) ended up calling for more respect from applicants. But my money is on the developer at any subsequent appeal.

That's a turn up, innit ... a writer more for council than 'development' and yet the question of barracuda developers is almost as crucial in 2024 as that of the elephant in the room as alluded to above.

I mean, look at the architectural state of London just now ... look at the quality of new buildings ... I stop short of using the word shoddy as we don't need the stasi on our doorstep, do we?

If You Get The Very Basics Wrong, Why Should We Listen Further?

Carole Cadwalladr on the riots:

"The 1996 Dunblane massacre and the outcry that followed are held up in the US as a textbook example of how an act of terror mobilised a country to demand effective gun regulation.The atrocity, in which 16 children and their teacher were killed, provoked a wave of national revulsion that, within weeks, led to 750,000 people signing a petition demanding a change to the law. Within a year and a half, new legislation had outlawed the ownership of handguns."

But Carole, we still have gun crime. So really, how effective was it? It stopped some innocent people enjoying a legal hobby, and the thugs and criminals went right on doing what they do...

Almost 30 years on, the horrific violence visited on a dance class in Southport has sparked a very different reaction. A reaction that shocked many in Britain this week but which experts in domestic extremism – and especially those who look at the intersection of violence and technology – say is all too depressingly familiar. And in this, our new age of algorithmic outrage, depressingly inevitable. “We’ve always had radicalisation, but in the past, leaders would be the bridge and bring people together,” said Maria Ressa, the Filipino journalist and trenchant tech critic who won the 2021 Nobel peace prize. “That’s impossible to do now, because what used to radicalise extremists and terrorists is now radicalising the public. Because the information ecosystem is designed that way.”

Ah, so now we must ban the Internet? I think that's going to prove a tougher opponent than the target shooting community... 

The question is what Keir Starmer will do.

The wrong thing, of course! Since this whole thing started, he's unerringly done that every single step of the way. 

Ebner points to the fact that this is no longer about dark corners of the internet: politicians are among those who have been radicalised. “They now say things that they would not have said previously and use dog whistles to the far right, flirting with conspiracy myths that used to belong to fringe far-right movements.”

And now everyone can see that they actually had a point after all and that the conspiracy is out in the open. No wonder people like you, Carole, are shitting themselves at no longer being able to control the narrative... 

The emasculated male

My reaction to this one is perhaps not what many might suspect …

Suicide is the number one killer of Australian men. A court system perceived to favour women with child custody and the family home (even where these men are unemployed and have nowhere else to go) are major factors in the suicide of many Australian men. https://spectator.com.au/2024/08/the-epidemic-of-male-suicide-in-australia/

All right … yes, the Big Payback by certain types of Hate Men women for perceived wrongs in the 50s, the 1890s, probably in 1425 … I’ve not a lot to say about history but if you’re going to bludgeon male kids before they’re grown, instilling guilt and self-loathing for others’ wrongs in the past … that actually says something about you as a person.

My reaction this time is not to the Feminazi female and lefty male scumbags supporting them but to the young males themselves, having no father in the home but just a succession of men pincushioning their mum at home … and that’s before we even get to this gender dysphoria bollox.

Now look … if you scroll down my X timeline, you’ll see a fair bit of this female world, from forests to fine artifacts to the fairy world and Wind in the Willows … so there’s definitely a certain SNAGishness in Jimbo (lack of parents I put it down to) but there’s also the usual demeanour seen here … that born of a time now long past. Direct, I call it.

What about these poor little sods today though? What chance any sort of masculinity? What chance they’ll be the bread winner in this manufacturing free new nation, where their talents are not needed? Correction … very much needed but not wanted by a particular type running society?

I’d say there’s an almighty crime against humanity going on here and the litmus test is actual suicide which, sorry … but that’s pathetic … as in pathos. I’ll say one thing … if they’d had a trad western upbringing … yes, including the Trinitarian God … they’d not be suiciding. No way. 

For a start, there’d be two parents in the home … there’d actually be a home … if there were paedo things happening, it might be later but it would eventually come out through the local infrastructure … the schoolteacher would still be a respected figure, unlike in today’s rainbow politics days. It was never “great” but it was a darned sight better than this hell on earth now.

And now more of the same, courtesy of just over 80% of the voting public staying home and just under 20% of red rosette nutters getting their communist into power.

Why did 80% not vote, apart from lethargy?  Well some did ... the Tories and others did actually return Members ... triumph of hope over experience of broken promises?

Where's it all now going?

First World Problems

Many Norwegians are feeling guilty, according to Elisabeth Oxfeldt. The professor of Scandinavian literature at Oslo University says wealthy Norwegians are increasingly contrasting their comfortable lives with those of people who are struggling, particularly overseas.

Oh my, the poor dears! 

“We’ve seen the emergence of a narrative of guilt about people’s privileged lives in a world where others are suffering,” she says. Thanks to its significant oil reserves, the largest in Europe after Russia’s, Norway is one of the world’s richest countries. The strength of its economy, as measured per member of its population, is almost twice that of the UK,, external and bigger even than that of the US. Norway even runs a budget surplus – its national income exceeds its expenditure. This is in marked contrast to most other nations, including the UK, which have to borrow money to cover their budget deficits.

And so, the bleak Scandinavian psyche must needs discover something to fret about, instead of revelling in their good fortune.

Prof Oxfeldt is an expert on how Scandinavian books, films and TV series reflect the wider culture of their time. She says she increasingly sees these mediums explore Norway’s wealth guilt.

“By looking at contemporary literature, films and TV series, I found that the contrast between the happy, fortunate or privileged self and the suffering ‘other’ brought about feelings of guilt, unease, discomfort or shame.

“Not everyone feels guilty, but many do,” adds Prof Oxfeldt, who has coined the phrase “Scan guilt”. Plots featured in recent Norwegian dramas include members of the “leisure class” who rely on services provided by migrant workers who reside in bedsits in their basements. Or women who realise that they have achieved gender equality in the workplace by relying on low-paid au pairs from poor countries to care for their children, says Prof Oxfeldt.

Hmm, doesn’t sound that different to the UK, really. Have they considered all getting columns in the ‘Guardian’ or ‘Independent’…?

Unsurprisingly, Norway has long been one of the happiest in the world, according to the World Happiness Report. It is currently in seventh place., external But on the other hand, reasons Børre Tosterud, an investor and retired hotelier, Norway’s “utter reliance on oil earnings” has resulted in an excessively large government budget, an inflated public sector, and a shortage of labour that holds back the private sector. “It’s not sustainable,” he insists.

It’s not? Oh, well, I guess that’s a warning our own government should be heeding, then. Anyone think they will?

Managerialists

There’s a video up in another place on the MGB … Ruairidh does much of that sort of thing … aerospace, trains, whatever … shipping … and the conclusion he comes to is the same as so many vloggers and bloggers on Britain’s manufacturing history … it’s summed up in this comment from an obviously non-Brit:

Back when I started blogging, as distinct from commenting on blogs, a chap called Chris Dillow visited, I visited him … he was on about a thing called “managerialism” and I thought that it was one of the left against capitalism … close all shops, no more self-employed ventures … but it was far more than that, wasn’t it?

I’d just returned from Russia and one thing which stood out in memory was my mate there and I going to a new megastore built by Ikea, with Swedish management. However, as often happened in Russia around 2000, they’d watch the western foreigners set up the venture, then walk in and take it over. 

Well this is what happened with the megastore. My mate surprised me as they’re proud of their country … we by the way visited the food place every Thursday to chew the fat … he said to me … now watch the place go to ruin … just watch how this Ikea cafe drops in standard.

And it did … even down to new staff being surly, rude, couldn’t care less. Every country has its ra ra ra fine side … but it has its downside too.  One of the worst aspects of Britain, apart from shoddy buildings in the past few decades and the really schlock modern culture is upper management, i.e. the Managerial Class … just as bad as the Political Class and its low grade decision makers … just look at Westminster.

Smearing

There’s a sister post to this at the main (substack) N.O. site … it comes to the issue through the smearing of those calling out the vaxx and lockdown outrages of 2021 to 2024 and still happening now. 

This post comes at the “smearing” topic via the police …

Maybe the MPF might start being honest, not telling porkies by omission.  One aspect is good cop bad cop … there are decent cops, too frightened to speak out … there are bad cops joining the whole sicko thing with gusto, kneeling humiliatingly, bowing to the invader, contrasting with five or six of them turning up at some woman’s home, sawing the door in half (on video), piling into her home and dragging her out.

Cooper’s partly right, in that she got the public perception of runaway, rainbow plod, kneeling when not running away alternating with the bullying thuggery. Much of it … but not all … comes from above and shifting this to the States for a mo, to Butler … you saw the testimony from the SS man who stated that he was ordered not to take out the gunman … though he saw him seconds before.

Much of this is top down and bringing in fictional Bourne characters, we’re talking Noah Voson, Conklin but those much higher up than those two. In Nixon’s days, it was Mark Felt … today the names are very public.

Over here … Rowley springs to mind but even he’s the puppet of whomever’s above him. These are the ones needing removing.

Meanwhile, meathead Starmer and Rowley, plus that CPS clown, play their part smearing the ordinary Brit.

The good aspect is when they start trying to prosecute those from other lands, e.g. Musk. Plus we are international ourselves … witness Nigel with Maria B on Fox. The days of oppressing just the natives and no one outside gets a say … that’s gone. Yes, they can pick of you or me, but thousands of others take our places.

To my mind, smearing is where the other side has no valid case … the vast majority of the disgruntled being working people with no time for all this rubbish. If they rally at all, it’s on a Saturday, in London … vans of fully riot clad plod leap out and start laying into grandmothers.

Police are unhappy? Leaving in droves?  No respect left? Wonder why.

Even Their Briefs Are Bonkers!

The barrister Paul Powlesland, who has acted for climate protesters, was called to jury service last week, and made judicial history by taking an oath on the thing most holy to him – not an ancient book, but a cupful of water from his local river in north-east London:

“I swear by the River Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames,” he said, “that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.”

*blinks* 

Powlesland explained that he wanted to promote the idea of the sacredness of nature, and its place in the legal system. “I hope that many others follow suit,” he said, “and animism is soon found more regularly in our courts.”

Well, you do you, Paul. I'll be hoping for more sanity in them myself. 

In a national v globo dispute … who wins?

There’s an intriguing conundrum right now and I’m not sure anyone fully has the hang of it. Yes, we all know about Build Back, about the crisis planners, e.g. Event 201 … the plandemic, all of that … we know about the poisoned vaccines across the world and you could be forgiven for thinking that companies, platforms and organisations with global clout, on whom so many depend day to day … they’re above any law.

Then we get this:

The bollox this Vstager carries on about … what’s she going to do? Blanket ban X? In which country? Italy might not agree, nor Hungary, nor quite a few, as their pollies need X, ggl etc. to spread their message. The US is interesting … election months.

And the rubbish about extraditing Musk to Britain … what sort of psycho is Starmer? Andrew Torba has already told him where to put it.  So there’s an arch-globalist, Starmer, telling other global company heads what to do … in a national, not global way.

This constant strength testing … national versus global, is intriguing.

The smell of fear (quite rightly perhaps, perhaps not)

The gals across the way at our place are far fewer than the boys but when they do write or send, it's worth looking at.  I would say that as a central plank of my own platform, stall, whatever, is "men and women or women and men finding ways to effectively working together, using known strengths, the other covering when their strengths are to the fore."

Just sounds logical to me but there's been an entire political industry since Weishaupt, since Marx, the suffragettes, the Frankfurt School, since Friedan and similar Marxist harpies ... dedicated to finding points of grievance between the sexes, rather than points of agreement ... then working on them, prising them open, rubbing salt in ... and all weaponry of the shadow power have been dedicated to making women's lives a misery in the long term ... youtube has any number of vlogs, by women, on the topic ... such that may women are fearful in so many ways now, having lost so much faith in the medical profession for example ... just look for Mary Tally Bowden for a start ... she's on X.

Here's another example, sent by our Toodles across the way:

https://www.renegadetribune.com/study-women-in-their-40s-prefer-to-delay-mammography-screening-when-informed-of-real-risks/

There's also the other side of the coin ... robbing boys of masculinity so that they grow up as Little Lord Fauntleroys and Christopher Robins, rather than the boy in The Who's "I'm a Boy":

I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But if I say I am, I get it

… Wanna play cricket on the green
Ride my bike across the stream
Cut myself and see my blood
Wanna come home all covered in mud

But that song itself is about gender dysphoria ... in the 60s ... so the notion has been around a long time. Coming back to Toodles and her reading:

The national probability-based U.S. survey, led by Dr. Laura D. Scherer and colleagues, involved 495 women aged 39 to 49 years without a history of breast cancer or known BRCA1/2 gene mutations. Participants were presented with a breast cancer screening decision aid (DA) that provided information about screening benefits and harms, as well as a personalized breast cancer risk estimate.

The study’s findings were striking:

• Before viewing the DA, 27% of participants preferred to delay screening.
•  After viewing the DA, this number increased to 38.5%.
• There was no significant increase in the number of women never wanting mammography (5.4% before vs. 4.3% after).
• Women who preferred to delay screening had lower breast cancer risk than those who did not.
• Information about overdiagnosis was surprising to 37.4% of participants, compared to 27.2% for false-positive results and 22.9% for screening benefits.

These results suggest that when women are provided with comprehensive information about the benefits and risks of mammography screening, a significant portion prefer to delay the procedure, especially those at lower risk for breast cancer.

It all comes down, does it not, to "sound information", consistent, not to line Big Pharma's pockets but to help the women themselves ... out of a love for women as a species (as I'm guilty of jokingly calling them, applying it to men too ... are we not from Mars).

I'm at an NHS partner course, surrounded by mainly women and all go in for readings of this or that regularly, whereas it takes a lot to get me along once a year or biennially ... my health is staying out of those places. They cornered me three months ago and at least the readings were ok.

Point of this post? It's becoming more widespread, distrust of Authority, and we can argue about this ... is Authority today worthy of any trust, or is it all about not caring in the least, about me me me, about greed and to hell with the patient?

You're Employed To Drop Bombs And Shoot Down The Enemy...

...so giving a bit of 'offence' should be like water off a duck's back:

The RAF has also launched a wider review of historical assets and terminology in a bid to prevent offence being taken, the MoS has learned.

Sources said 'further changes' could be ordered, pending its findings. The RAF said last night: 'As a modern and diverse Service, our focus must be on not giving prominence to any offensive term that goes against the values of the Royal Air Force. Therefore, 14 Squadron have ceased using their historic unofficial nickname.

'The traditions and informal nicknames used by the RAF in the earlier days have a place in our history. However, some are no longer appropriate in the 21st Century.'

*sighs* 

14 Squadron has connections to the region dating back to both world wars. The squadron's motto 'I spread my wings and keep my promise' is taken from the Koran and even appears in Arabic on its royal crest.

Awkward!