Angela Rayner has overturned a decision blocking the construction of a £670m data centre on green belt land, days after Labour vowed to “send a clear message to the Nimbys”.
The Housing Secretary has given the green light to a project in Buckinghamshire, where developers are planning to build a new data centre on land around an 18th century, Grade-II listed farmhouse.
It comes as the Government this week unveiled plans to “unleash the biggest building boom in half a century” by waving through a flurry of major development projects.
The problem with this is that growth – major, reliable – growth doesn’t come from large scale projects. It’s from millions of people doing little things. The sorts of things that never will get far enough up the planning system for the Sec of State to approve or deny them. That is, we can;t solvethe growth problem by concentrating on the top, approving more appeals etc. We still need to change it at the bottom. Kitchen extensions, mansard rooves, change of use ….
Their ignorance is truly amazing, beaten only by their spite. Ooh, a lovely big data centre! That’ll show everyone how keen we are on growth! No, we won’t need steel to build it, we can just buy that from somewhere else because we’re lovely and green. And no, we’ll have plenty of leccy and even if it gets a bit cloudy or calm we can just get some Duracell batteries on Amazon.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise. Because if you don’t you look pretty damn ungracious.
On a similar theme, this week’s Capitalisn’t podcast has an interview with Federico Sturzenegger who is Melei’s Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation of the Argentine Republic and the real brains behind the reforms. He did most of the legwork for one of Melei’s opponents but still got the job.
Think Keith Joseph.
If Kemi or Nigel were really interested in reform they’d be visiting him rather than the US. Sturzenegger and a team of volunteers reviewed every Argentine law and rewrote them to remove rent seeking clauses before the election campaign and so were ready to go on day 1. That’s preparation for government. They knew exactly which vested interests would oppose them and how they’d do it and so Sturzenegger proposed to stave them of cash, because they were mostly government funded.
Rooves? What are you, some arts graduate with clean finger-nails? Roofs please.
@jgh – How about more than one “confirmed bachelor”?
tea | nose > kbd
Ah… We’re at the “Things are Being Done!” stage….
Having signed the ‘we want a new general election ‘ petition I got an email overnight with a statement from the Cabinet Office. What a load of self-serving word salad. It’s like the govt are saying “Fuck off and die, along with all the rest of you miserable proles”.
Guido pointed to a funny GB News item the other day explaining TTK’s latest emission. Lots of nodes with connecting edges looking a bit like a neural network diagram. You can see that the idiot is seriously out of his depth. He should have stuck to looking up precedents in dusty old tomes in the bowels of his chambers. One might hope for defenestration but the possible successors are also a complete shit-show.
TG – One might hope for defenestration
I hope he gets soaked in toxic sludge and then hit by RoboCop’s van.
T.G. that’s a marvellous email, yes, with three “foundations” in the first three paras. What I liked best wasThe Prime Minister can call a general election at a time of their choosing which suggests that TTK has gender-specific pronoun preferences.
The wonderful thing about the Seven Pillars of Vagueness is that questions of borders and immigrants simply don’t feature.
Given the level of confusion evident in the however many foundations and missions it was I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Starmer signed the petition as well.
I think this lot have simply made extreme trolling into the central “pillar” of government.
“We’ll tell ’em we’re going for growth. This has to be technological and futuristic because of course we’re engineers of the human soul, so the growth will be in data centres! You know, those things that need a shitload of consistent, reliable electricity that we can no longer generate because of Ed’s plans!
Brilliant! That’ll fuck ’em up! hahahahaaaaaa!!!!”
Labour vowed to “send a clear message to the Nimbys”.
We need a new government award: “Hero of Soviet Neighbour”.
I notice that the overturning of the blockage occurs *after* all the lawyering has happened.
So here’s a scenario:
– project is announced.
– many lawyers sue to block
– lots of consultations and government paying for NGOs to sue the government
– the lawsuits and appeals wind their way through the process, paying out tax money as they go. A large portion of that tax money pays for campaign donations (mostly to Labour) and salaries for executives at those NGOs.
– after the final decision comes down, it’s blocked, and no more money can be extracted from the process, the politicians who benefit from this wave their hands and say “It’s going ahead anyway. (two fingers); we’ve been paid.”
Does that sound about right?
Noticed the spelling myself, jgh. Actually he’s spelt it entirely correctly f>v as in calves. It’s just that I haven’t seen that spelling for years. Although pretty well everybody pronounces roofs with a ‘v’. Apart from those of West Indian descent.
West Indians pronounce it “battymen”.
I’m sure M is is entirely correct in his evaluation. It all becomes clear when you realise the UK has been living under a government of occupation for a considerable time. Like wartime France. These people are your sworn enemies.
I’ve not seen “rooves” since spelling books in the 1970s, and being in the crawling around under them getting dirty trade, it’s roofs to us. Mr Google backs me up with: “Rooves” is an alternative outdated form of the plural, appearing occasionally by analogy with “hooves”.
TG – “He should have stuck to looking up precedents in dusty old tomes in the bowels of his chambers. ”
I’m sure there’s a Lord Alli joke lurking there somewhere…