To celebrate the launch of my Substack, here is a selection of my blogs from over the years.
First up, my most widely read blog (by some way).
Written back in 2016, I predicted Corbynism to fail and fail badly.
I guess I was kinda correct?
A few weeks ago on here I stumbled on some neo-fash-adjacent account ranting about loud telephone conversations on public transport.
Now on every bus I get on I can’t help but hear it. Currently two loudspeaker calls going on on my top deck.
Is this how radicalisation happens?
I know it’s a cliche to do this but… the state of U.K’s trains compared to Finland’s…
Here is my lunch from the restaurant car. There is also a part of one carriage designated as a children’s play area.
Cos we refuse to do proper pedestrianisation with greenery and cobbles and all that stuff. We do everything on the cheap. We’re a ´know the cost of everything and the value of nothing’ nation that despises investment.
Hahahahaha it’s an image from Poundbury. Where infamously, residents who moved into phase 1 of the town then objected to the building of phase 2 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I knew a labour politician who lived in France and they said they thought the French healthcare system was so much better then ours, but they dare not say it publicly.
🚨 BREAKING: George Galloway WINS Rochdale
➡️ Galloway wins 40%
➡️ Crushing majority (5,700 votes)
➡️ Independent comes 2nd with 21%
➡️ Labour fall to FOURTH place with 8%
We live in a multicultural society and it must be the case that in some cultures it is simply not frowned upon to have private conversations very loudly in public spaces where they intrude on others.
It’s incredible how 99.9% of the ‘the bloodshed must end’ discourse is directed at Israel, and not at Hamas.
Like, Hamas can stop this right now as well, y’know.
I makes me think that… 1/3
Out of interest, does anyone know any cultures where it’s not seen as impolite to watch videos or play music out loud on your device on a bus or train or whatever?
2009 was when Crossrail 1 was signed off.
Since 2010… Crossrail 2 mothballed. Bakerloo line extension, mothballed.
South London tram, cancelled in 2008 by Boris Johnson.
Can anyone add to the list of infrastructure improvements in London that have been cancelled?
"Why is it that people in the north are always forced to choose? Why are we always treated as second-class citizens when it comes to transport?" Mayor of Greater Manchester
@AndyBurnhamGM
asks.
#TrevorPhillips
📺 Sky 50, Freeview 233 and YouTube
We suffer so much because we share the same language with America. I doubt the walkable city policies enacted by Ghent caused right-wing influencers 4,000 miles away to tweet about it
Earlier today,
#Antifa
mobilized in
#Oxford
, England to oppose people protesting over the
#15minutecity
climate policies designed to limit drivers in the city. Cameras would be used to identify cars without special permits, leading to fines.
I am kind of flabbergasted by the reaction that Labour attack advert has triggered.
Here are my thoughts on it, in a thread.
1. Thousands of child sexual abusers getting away with non-custodial sentences under a Tory gov (a legit issue to campaign on ✅)
Please tell me this person is trolling?
London’s nightlife is getting smothered by the NIMBY veto and this is particularly outrageous in the heart of the West End.
The Be At One opposite us is blasting music with the doors open in clear breach of their music license at 7pm on a Tuesday evening. Taylor Swift audible from 50 metres away. Is this the Soho people want?
@sohosocietyw1
@twocitiesnickie
The nature of this unhinged rant shows that Jon Richardson’s comment really hit a raw nerve. I think it hit a nerve because people like Socialist Dad do have buried guilt. Guilt about backing someone who lost so devastatingly and enabled a right-wing government to continue.
NIMBYism causes gentrification. If you don’t increase housing supply in a city with a growing population, more and more people are going to compete for what’s left. When that happens, those with deeper pockets win.
This map is just one huge 'policy failure' sign isn't it?
Nearly all of GL should do pink and there should be large pink clusters in all our major cities and pink blots for our sizeable towns.
The "poor people don't drive" narrative is such a London bubble thing.
The pink areas on this map are where people use public transport more than driving.
Interesting chat with Francis Fukuyama on the Rest is Politics podcast. He said one of greatest issues facing in Western democracies is that our governments are often stymied by complex bureaucracy, which leads to delays and spiralling costs whenever they try to do anything big.
I’m out doing some YIMBY campaigning and I just came across one of those highly engaged voters who says only new ‘affordable housing’ will lower prices.
It’s immensely challenging to densifying London’s sprawling low density suburbs. That means strategic sites that can be densified, really need to be maximised.
The 29-storey tower plans for Broadwalk are utterly ludicrous – how can our Labour Council approve so many towers which are completely out of character with the area and with such little care for local residents?
What a shoddy disgrace that the residents of Soho would prefer a never ending crawl of SUVs and diesel vans over al-fresco dining.
And what is an even greater disgrace is Westminster Labour refusing to act in the interest of Londoners over Soho's 'neighbourhood defenders'
Suggesting Soho would be soulless, sterile and boring without cars implies that cars add ambience. Cars add nothing, apart from pollution and danger
@CityWestminster
My response to this article:
1. Cars are expensive. Bicycles are very cheap. It's an extremely egalitarian form of transport.
2. An obvious point. Liveable Streets do not prevent you from owning a car.
A
#TowerHamlets
Labour councillor has raised concerns about his Labour-run borough's Liveable streets programme. He says working-class and BAME residents feel it will penalise them. Does he have a point? Up to a point, maybe: .
@TH_Labour
@AyoCaesar
If that Asian Labour MP was the literally the Prime Minister, no it wouldn’t be racist. Because they’re being singled out due to being the person RUNNING THE GOVERNMENT, and not for their race. It would be very different if Labour had put Nus Ghani on this ad, for example.
Unhinged. Completely unhinged. But it must be coming from somewhere… Did corporate landlords donors and Tory bigwigs sit down together and thrash out this messaging?
In Year 7, each of my R.E. class were given little red paperback bibles. As soon as the lesson was over, we had a huge fight on the stairwell, throwing bibles at each other.
If the Torah or Bible or the holy book of any religion was disrespected by pupils in a school, and that led to justifiable complaints, then any school would take action against pupils who did that. And there would be no controversy whatsoever. The only reason why what happened at
Last month Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed an area of 1,700 square miles, forcing 100k ethnic Armenians to flee their homes.
I don’t really have the words to describe the asymmetry of reactions by the international community.
Groups like this is why we can’t have good, safe, cycling infrastructure to transition people away from cars.
If you are going to have segregated cycle lanes along bus routes, you either need Dutch style floating bus stop or Copenhagen style bus stops (pictured here in London).
Filmed late last year next to Colliers Wood Tube Station London. This floating bus stop was put down in lockdown & needs to be removed. Disabled people cannot use it. Access to & from the bus needs to be direct from the pavement without having to cross or step into a cycle lane.
Watching episode two of Putin vs The West and just feeling sick to my stomach at the knock on impact of Ed Miliband whipping his MPs to block military action against Assad after his use of chemical weapons.
We’re such a strange country. The median voter is extremely authoritarian and politicians consistently talk tough on crime. Yet on a semi regular basis, you’ll see sentences like this. Sentences so lenient that they leave bleeding heart liberals like me, outraged.
"A man who raped a 13-year-old schoolgirl in a park when he was 17 has avoided a prison sentence.
"Sean Hogg, 21, attacked the girl in Dalkeith Country Park, Midlothian, on various occasions between March and June 2018"
230 homes on a Penge’s Blenheim shopping centre is set for approval, by Bromley’s Development Control Committee tonight.
Fury due to car parking reduction and threatening the “Penge hamlet”.
Initial scheme has shortened at reduced by 20 homes to local opposition.
Has any Labour or Lib Dem councillor in West Yorkshire challenged Cllr Ali’s framing of this incident? The incident was an autistic child accidentally scuffing a copy of the Quran. The child has since received death threats.
A comment in a YIMBY WhatsApp group about this planning decision was so good I just had to share it:
‘Mad we live in a country where developers are willing to hand over half of their product to the state and people still say no 😂´ 1/2
Abbott literally retweeted a tweet saying
#ItWasAScam
(from a account that persistently makes that claim) a few weeks back. It’s stuff like that that means she isn’t welcomed back. Why is this being overlooked?
Imagine getting on a train at Leeds and getting off at Brussels/Paris/Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, the lack of ambition from this country can be despairing at times.
But at least it's clear what the Party of growth, ambition, and investment.
Snark and unpleasantness is what makes this site go round. Rent controls in Berlin failed and they are becoming an issue in Stockholm. Rent controls certainly might help some but undersupply of homes is the fundamental cause of high rents.
Earlier today, myself and several representatives of Lewisham West Labour wrote to the Secretary of
@CLPLewishamW_P
to express our dismay and anger at the invitation of Dr Piers Robinson to speak to Party members. We do not believe his toxic views reflect the values of
@UKLabour
LTNs are just the very first step to producing streets like this and it’s a bit devastating that people can’t seem to envisage a city with a reduced demand for cars. So many politicians across the board are not brave enough to continue this journey to reduce traffic on our roads.
“If you invite more cars, you get more cars. If you make more streets better for cars you get more traffic...If you invite people to walk more and use public spaces more, you get more life in the city. You get what you invite.” - Jan Gehl
🎥 🏗🏙 We’re setting out new rules today that will help clamp down on speculative tall buildings in Ealing.
We want genuinely affordable homes and jobs that pay decent living incomes.
Read more about it all:
This idea needs to die. Imagine the utter carnage if you attempted to build a suburb like this next to say, Chelsfield station in Bromley. Good design or old fashioned architecture won't end NIMBYism.
Only centralisation and land use reform can weaken the grip of NIMBYism.
Cabinet Ministers should absolutely neglect their constituency work.
And my controversial opinion is ‘constituency work’ should be an afterthought for backbenchers. You are not a Citizens Advice advisor, you are a legislator.
@MattWWoolwich
To be fair, he’s presumably doing it as the local MP not the chancellor. Would be more worried about cabinet ministers who neglect constituency work tbh (tho photographing & posting it is the questionable bit)
If I were supreme ruler of London, I’d compulsory purchase every low density 80s or 90s ‘postmodern’ housing estate in Zone 2/3 and build trad-inspired mansion blocks that would fail our suburbia and tower block loving rules on sunlight, overlooking and accessibility.
@msolwilliams
This “everything in moderation” approach in the UK would involve compulsory purchasing and knocking down a hundreds of two storey houses, which I am 100 per cent supportive of, but it is a funny definition of “moderation”.
Minimum parking requirements, minimum daylight and sunlight requirements, minimum overlooking requirements, access standards for every property, they all add up. This is what you get.
Isn’t carbon capture technology hokum pokum and anyone who talks about it being a viable solution in the short/medium term nearly always has has a vested interest in preventing a rapid transition to green energy?
Funny conflict in which the bad guys can be persuaded by appeals to humanitarian ethical instincts but it’s not even worth appealing to the freedom fighters, because they act totally outside of the ethical framework that underpins our concept of human rights.
3/3
Very very gradually the screwed generation are getting into positions of influence. One reason why I think GBNews is so good on the housing crisis is that so many of their producers are quite young, and therefore understand that it is a CRISIS that needs talking about.
@CharlotteCGill
@willnorman
Good cycle infrastructure is great for ppl who use hand-operated tricycles or mobility scooters.
And you’re much more likely to find older cyclists when there’s good infrastructure. Nearly a quarter of all trips made by Dutch over-65s, are cycled.
I’ve retweeted a lot of people mocking this. It’s 2020, mockery is all I have left.
But one thing that has struck me about Jeremy ‘straight talking, honest politics’ Corbyn and his leadership has been its cravenness and the pervasiveness of totally shameless spin.
Our country’s obsession with consultations and our culture of allowing consultations to supersede representative politics, bakes in anti-growth politics. 1/5
Please help us and object to this outrageous scheme to build a 42-storey tower over a Grade II building in
#Birmingham
.
It would set a terrible precedent for listed buildings within the city. See the plans:
📷 : CGI image from Design & Access statement
@CharlotteCGill
The lowest income workers don’t own cars, they get the bus to work. Less cars on the road and better air quality with have a have a positive impact, particularly on low income income workers.
Is this the right scale of development? High density, large buildings crammed right up against 2-4 stories in historic heart of the Conservation Area, creating narrow streets in shade with 65% unaffordable housing? Pls sign petition for local discussion:
Ahead of setting our budget for 2023/24 it’s been a busy year for
@mcrlabour
and
@mancitycouncil
We’ve been supporting residents through the cost of living crisis, building more genuinely affordable homes, investing in parks & green spaces, &creating new jobs and opportunities
Create more space for pedestrians and people will use that space, to mingle, to chat, to buy & sell, to dine... or to protest against creating more space for pedestrians.
🚨 irony alert 🚨 someone has pointed out the protest took place on a modal filter. It’s a long-standing pedestrianised strip that stops people driving from Lewisham High Street to the residential streets behind.
Consultations are such a scourge - unrepresentative, limited, heavily impacted by negativity bias that leads to a heavy weighting towards ‘we don’t want change’ attitudes and general conservatism.
Your voice matters🤝
That’s our message as low traffic neighbourhoods in Jesmond will be removed.
Our pilot found 👇
✅ The pilot objectives were met
🚗 Residents journey times increased
🚨 Emergency services were unaffected
🗣 77 % of people opposed the scheme
👇1/2 👇
…lots of Israel-haters subconsciously believe that the bad guys (Western governments, Netanyahu’s government, IDF, Israeli society) share their own moral framework in which one can persuaded by humanitarianism, but Hamas don’t.
2/3
2. The government have an impact on this, they could put in place mandatory minimum sentencing, or invest in prisons if a lack of prison space is one of the issues leading to these sentences etc (legit to criticise the government for this failing ✅)
260,000? We need to build between 300,000-500,000 homes A YEAR. Many of these homes will be a state of deep disrepair and bringing them back won’t even touch the sides.
Empty homes are a distraction. We need to BUILD.
Over 260,000 wasted homes empty long-term, total vacancy over a million:
@dluhc
Data released today shows empty homes up in every region while 100,000 families are homeless
Children grow up sharing beds while over a quarter of a million homes sit empty
Thames Town is a new Chinese district in Songjiang that aimes to recreate British architecture and town planning… 🇨🇳
Why are the Chinese better at building our stuff than we are?
5. There is absolutely no hint (or whistle) in this advert that Sunak doesn’t believe in custodial sentences for child sex offences, because of his ethnic background.
He is highlighted in these adverts because he is PM (as points 2 & 4 explain) 1/3
The Guardian is so dreadful on housing isn’t it? It’s like it’s a paper for Left-liberal home-owning NIMBYs to make themselves feel good about themselves 👀
It’s doesn’t matter if it’s Tory or Labour, the issues with NIMBYism are structural. There is no direct electoral incentive to work for the millions of voters in your region, the only incentive is to appease a few thousand residents in your patch.
Maybe - just maybe - a more nuanced approach to reviving city centres *and* protecting residential amenity could work. That’s historically what London has been about. If you don’t like it, move! … to Magaluf
@CharlotteCGill
I’m a green-nut but I find the reaction to this coal mine a bit hysterical. Burning coal for energy in 2022 is reprehensible. But unfortunately we still build lots of things out of steel and that needs coking coal.
I don’t… don’t see the problem with this? If a consultancy firm wants to pay an MP silly money for insights I don’t see a problem if all interests are declared and they remove themselves from anything that might lead to a conflict of interest.
Was 25th October 2022 when Sunak became PM a clean slate, and we can all forget about the impact of 12 years of austerity? No it wasn’t. Of course Labour are going tie him to failures across the last decade.
This is such typical discourse. The Right going with a vibes-based analysis that immigrants are overwhelmingly getting to the front of the queue for social housing. The Left bring up evidence in response that doesn’t actually refute this, but just gives the vibes of refuting it
81% of social tenants are white, 92% are UK nationals.
The overwhelming majority of immigrant households rent privately.
Social housing is built with initial grant, but its day-to-day running costs are covered by rent. Calling it 'subsidised' is misleading.
Omg I can't believe The Green Party are still anti-nuclear in 2022. The anti-nuclear movement has done untold damage to our planet since the mid-late 20th century.
Pleased to hear
#SizewellC
is under review.
It would be a burden and risk, not a solution: it would take 10-17 years to start producing energy
But the govt must instead invest in solutions that can address energy & climate crisis, such as renewables & nationwide home insulation
"I would not be sending materiel [to Ukraine] which would allow the invasion of Russia."
@jeremycorbyn
condemns Russia's invasion but would prefer to broker 'a ceasefire' rather than send armaments to Ukraine if he were PM now.
On
@GlobalPlayer
@lewis_goodall
|
@jeremycorbyn
It would be very different, and a genuine dog whistle, if Labour had chosen a random Tory MP of Pakistani heritage to front this advert.
I think we can all see the difference here, and see how it’s legitimate to put the literal Prime Minister on these anti-Gov adverts.
@AyoCaesar
If that Asian Labour MP was the literally the Prime Minister, no it wouldn’t be racist. Because they’re being singled out due to being the person RUNNING THE GOVERNMENT, and not for their race. It would be very different if Labour had put Nus Ghani on this ad, for example.