Unlike the Tories, who want developers to be able to evade all responsibility for affordable housing, as mayor I would use my powers to veto any planning application that did not match or exceed either a 40% affordable homes quota or an equivalent contribution to a London Homes Fund.
I would press for local authorities like London to have the power to introduce rent controls.
Hasn’t anyone told Diane that rent controls are the best way of destroying urban housing stock short of aerial bombing?
Almost certainly they have. That is why she wants them. The more unfit dwellings and/or homeless people there are, the more everyone will blame the wicked landlords and vote Labour.
I’ll never understand the Left’s attitude to “affordable” housing. It always ends up subsidising business.
The sole purpose of cities & towns is commerce.
Commerce requires workers & paying them is a cost.
The higher the accommodation costs the higher the compensation the workers will require.
So subsidising housing goes straight into the pocket of business.
Hasn’t anyone told Diane that rent controls are the best way of destroying urban housing stock short of aerial bombing?
I have tried to fight making a comment that will be interpreted in a bad way. Truly I have. But I have failed utterly. So to avoiding making Ironman accuse me of making the Baby Jesus cry again, let me talk about the Irish. It is one of those odd things that Irish nationalism co-exists with such strange bed fellows. I mean the Republic of Ireland itself was long a backward looking country – virtually mediaeval in its outlook and certainly regretting the both the Reformation and the Enlightenment. It was once called the only theocracy to the West of Saudi Arabia.
But who were its friends? The PIRA was always close to the Soviets and its clients like Libya. The Socialist Workers Party had members carry out terrorist attacks for them. But on the other hand, the OIRA had some odd links to the Nazis as well. We have seen this odd link with Islamic theocracies and the Socialist Workers Party recently with the Stop the War Coalition – as well as Socialist Parties going into alliances with Islamists in Europe.
What they all have in common was a dislike of England and the English.
Suppose that for most politicians, the formal label of their politics is largely irrelevant? Both Diane Abbott and David Lammy would claim they are making socialist points. And they are, in a way. Abbott wants to punish Upper Middle class property owners. Who happen to be mainly English (and dare I say it – White) I suspect. Lammy doesn’t mind criminals punishing Fortnum’s – providers to the Queen and popular among Middle class shoppers.
It may be socialist but it is also two members of an ethnic community insisting that members of the larger majority ethnic community should suffer to the benefit of members of their smaller ethnic community.
It is a measure of how integration has failed. We invited them here. We tried to make Them part of Us. But it has not worked out. Two prominent politicians see Us as Them. Abbott knows. Of course she does. It is not a Bug, it is a Feature.
SMFS’s theory completely fails to explain the existence of white English socialists. And there are quite a few of them.
S2, white English socialists are useful idiots.
Squander Two – “SMFS’s theory completely fails to explain the existence of white English socialists. And there are quite a few of them.”
No it doesn’t. It didn’t try to explain them. But I probably could.
British politics grew up in a British cultural environment. They reflect British political differences. They are not about ethnic differences because there were none of importance. White British people choose their political views for other reasons. Age mainly.
But when the Irish were forced to become part of the UK, they had a choice of aligning with the Tories or the “Left”. Well, they may be socially very conservative, but they did not choose the Conservatives did they? When Muslims came from South Asia, they might have been socially even more conservative. But they did not align with the Tories either. Think of ethnic differences being the trump card. In the English speaking world, you play what cards you have. But the ethnic card always trumps the others.
The White British community doesn’t have an ethnic card to play. They play another one. But I bet they would in another country or another context. I bet they will as they become a minority – as Whites in the US are doing. As everyone else votes down racial lines, increasingly, poor Whites vote Republican. This was Reagan’s triumph – winning over Whites in the north-east who used to vote Democrat.
That is why calling the warring parties in Lebanon “Left” or “Right” was so foolish. Or the politics of the Caribbean likewise. They weren’t. The labels hide the real nature of the politics when the trump card is played.
Let me be succinct:
Do you think Alan Cartwright will ever be as well known as Stephen Lawrence?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11446164/Alan-Cartwright-stabbing-CCTV-shows-moment-teen-knifed-on-bike-in-Islington.html
@Boris – From the Telegraph.
“All three suspects are described by police as male youths who were wearing dark tops and had their faces partly covered.”
So presumably part of their faces weren’t covered, so is there anything further that can be added to the police description? Something that might narrow down the range of suspects?
Squander Two – “SMFS’s theory completely fails to explain the existence of white English socialists. And there are quite a few of them.”
I think there is a shorter version – product differentiation. When everyone is X, there is no point selling yourself as an X candidate. It doesn’t work. Instead you say you believe A as opposed to the opposition’s B. But when the population is no longer made up entirely of Xes, then the situation is more complex.
And as it happens, I said that the White British would play the ethnic card if they were in the situation where it made sense, well of course they do. In Northern Ireland, it is often described as a sectarian conflict, but it is mainly an ethnic one. All parties *say* they are ideological, but in fact they are ethnic. It would be hard to drive the thin edge of a playing card between the main parties on any major issue.
That ethnic difference drives “Protestants” to vote for parties they would not have voted for if they had stayed in their ancestors’ Scotland. They would probably be voting for the SNP. It drives “Catholics” to vote for parties that many of them would not have voted for if they moved south of the border.
It’s worth watching that video a few times. See what’s playing out there. The tall guy coming from left field, taking a bike away from its owner & departing north towards Holloway.
It is, quite literally, a staged highway robbery. And this really isn’t unusual. Happened to a neighbour’s kid in busy Green Lanes, Harringay. Middle of the day. Whether anyone get’s stabbed or not is purely incidental.
Suspect was…of course.
bloke (not) in spain – “Suspect was…of course.”
Let me guess – not from the same ethnic community?
It is not about race, although some would like it to be. It is about who thinks of us as an Us and who thinks of us as a Them. We let a lot of people into the country who still think of us as a Them. We have failed to persuade them to think otherwise.
Homo homini lupus.
I bet David Lammy would be pretty pissed off if someone stole his bike. Might even want a jail term for the poor guy.
Caledonian Road is a shithole. Would not be surprised if the attackers lived on the Bemerton Estate, truly an awful place.
The Cally shouldn’t be. Try affording a flat in one of the streets off of it. But it is that estate, isn’t it? Indian country. Although not exactly.
He is tucked away on the BBC’s “London and South East” section of their website.
@SMfS
“Let me guess – not from the same ethnic community?”
Well no. The neighbour’s a Bubble. So the end game played out a bit differently when a bunch of Cyps caught the bike fancier & a couple of his mates & seriously hospitalised them, Minus their more desirable bling.
For what goes around, comes around.
Nah, Lammy would just claim for a new bike on expenses.
“as
mayorgauleiter I would use my powers to veto any planning application”There, I fixed it.
“Hasn’t anyone told Diane that rent controls are the best way of destroying urban housing stock short of aerial bombing?”
Are we sure that still holds true, though? We should test it.
Let’s start by aerial bombing Diane’s constituency.
“He is tucked away on the BBC’s “London and South East” section of their website.”
And now eclipsed by ‘pretty white girl found dead’…
If you started laying the napalm in Kingland High Road, Julia, you could work it right up to Edmonton Green in one pass. Sort Lamy’s manor on the way. Shame about the health food & trendy art shops in Stoke Newington Church Street, but there’s always a price, isn’t there? In this case, acceptable.
b(n)is
If we can kill every one of the bearded hipster twats in Stokey.. well what a bonus…
She probably knows already, but it’s politically expedient for her to support rent controls, isn’t it?
“If we can kill every one of the bearded hipster twats in Stokey.. well what a bonus…”
Say what you will about The Hipsters at least they make an effort to keep the place nice. Yes, the little cafes and bars are infuriatingly twee, but approx 1000% times better than the endless fried chicken/phone shop dumps.
There was a Grauniad moan yesterday about how the ‘unique’ culture of Hackney was being changed by the arrivals Craft Beer wielding hipsters. There’s no self-hate as potent as middle-class Self Hate!
Diane Abbot? No, she’s no one of the clever Machiavellian ones. She’s one of the thick race / sex baiting ones.
There are different sorts of socialists. Naive youngsters and sheltered academics.
Presumably David Lamy could speak at the trial in behalf of the perpetrators.
DL: “M’Lud. The defense asks that any sentence reflect that the victim had a considerably higher income than the accused. And could have well afforded to buy a new bike anyway.”
Amoral scum. And I don’t just mean the feral youths.
On Stoke Newington Church Street:
The remarkable sensation, as you walk past the Three Crowns, you’ve been magically translated from the twee-er shores of Hampstead Village to downtown Lagos
Dan,
“Yes, the little cafes and bars are infuriatingly twee, but approx 1000% times better than the endless fried chicken/phone shop dumps.”
Quite. Our American cousins put it thus:
“In late October, I pored over the 64-page Sunday Calendar section of the L.A. Times, which listed a thousand or more upcoming cultural events. I found just seven that were clearly organized by Latinos. While it’s a journalistic cliché to describe Mexican-American neighborhoods as “vibrant,” they aren’t.”
Source: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/fragmented-future/
In Britain it’s probably even worse. American immigrants can at least cling to the idea of the American dream, the great melting pot; immigrants in the UK harbour no such illusions.
Re Lammy and Fortnums. As every fule no:
Proper tea is theft.
Pete – “Proper tea is theft.”
Bloody hell.
JuliaM – “And now eclipsed by ‘pretty white girl found dead’…”
Well the nice thing about pretty White girls is that you can make a variety of pointless but concerned comments without Ironman accusing you of racism.
Which is why, I assume, no one is going to be talking about this much:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2977860/Schoolboys-aged-12-13-appear-court-accused-raping-woman-43-boys.html
Twelve in her apartment? I am guessing she invited them in as they have not been charged with breaking and entering. But what can you say? What can you do? How can you send boys that young to prison?
However if they turn out to be a little, well, vibrant, there is virtually nothing you could say without the Guardian Tendency screaming racism. Better to stick to the dead White girl.
SMfS: White people playing ethnic card. I was once playing in a footy tournament here in Dongguan. We lost and these two white guys one a Brit the other German went apeshit at the refs and organisers saying we were picked on because we were foreigners. I put my head down and walked away ashamed; we lost because we were shit at football.