FlyTheNest

EU fears Theresa May 'will not be able to uphold Brexit pledges'

Exclusive: Keir Starmer says Brussels has ‘high expectations’ for PM’s speech but she must face down Boris Johnson’s ‘fantasy Brexit’ and adopt a real position

Brussels fears an enfeebled Theresa May will not be able to stand by any pledges she makes in this week’s major speech on Brexit but has dismissed Boris Johnson’s intervention as an irrelevance, according to the shadow Brexit secretary.

Following meetings with all the major players in the EU’s negotiating team, Keir Starmer said “high expectations” in Brussels over the prime minister’s speech in Florence on Friday were tempered by concerns over her weakness. (Guardian)

SpinningHugo wrote:

Willow904 wrote:How does developing green belt help people live in London where the jobs are? Why is "speculative" planning permission with no intention to build desirable/acceptable? How is 320,000 homes or a third of all permissions over a 5 year period not high? If land with planning permissions but no houses is taxed appropriately, doesn't it stand to reason that house builders are better placed to profit by actually building them than landowners who do not?

It's about changing the relationship between landowners and those that use the land, incentivising people to be more active land users rather than inactive land owners.

Look at the commuter statistics. People are commuting into London from greater and greater distances. We need

(i) to enable the millions of people who commute from outside to live nearer (and to enable the increase of the millions who want to live in Lond to happen)

(ii) Allowing the City to grow enables businesses to locate further out: still within striking distance of the City

I am not at all surprised that a third of permissions don't happen. That is business: you get the permissions in case they are needed. If I'd been asked to guess, about what I'd expect. I doubt an LVT will make any difference at all to that.

Again, I support an LVT. A good idea. What I dispute is that it will be of much, if any, use in tackling the UK housing shortage. That needs government spending on infrastructure, and de-regulation of land use, both horizontally and vertically. Someone who thinks London is full of underdeveloped brown field hasn't looked into brownfield development. Brownfield development is the Simon Jenkins view: enough to refute it.

Someone who agrees is Chris Dillow, whose post we started this with (see our twitter exchange).

HindleA wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/society/com ... agging-law

The Lobbying Act is stifling charities. But the Tories don’t seem to care
David Brindle

HindleA wrote:https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... in-schools
Guidance
Using emergency adrenaline auto-injectors in schools
(eg.Epipen)

HindleA wrote:We had to keep one to hand,just in case,during home haemo.Thankfully nothing happened,I would probably have panicked and stabbed myself or something.