James 🇬🇧 👑
@TypeForVictory
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UK investor with conservative leanings. Expect econ, politics, and housing chat, and occasional poasting.
London, England
Joined January 2013
At 27 my grandad had 0 qualifications, a house, a wife, and 3 kids supported on a sergeant's salary. At 27 I just finished postgrad professional qualifications and share a 2 bed flat with 2 friends. I lose 65% of my income to taxes and rent and have 10sqft personal space.
What is the BEST simple explanation for why no one in the developed world is having kids?.
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Quick reminder that the govt closed almost 800 public libraries from 2010. These complaints that removing statues erases our history would have been useful when they literally were getting rid of our access to history books.
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My brother in christ the tracks are the point. - Roads can't tolerate the weight.- Rail has vastly less friction & mains power = way more efficient.- Subways don't get stuck in traffic.- Can't blow a tire / no tire dust.- Rail permanence increases investment.
Trackless trains will make subways and trams obsolete .
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Londoners when tourists stand on the left-hand side of the escalator
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He is - you can tell because adults' clothes would look really big on him, but he's ten and his clothes fit very well!.
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Candidate must have a STEM postgrad, US dual citizenship, speak Russian, and be between 27-37. Starting salary 40k.
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@thetimes Millennials spend less on consumption (takeaways, entertainment, drinking, holidays) than any other generation for the last century. That's because wages have stagnated, remts/taxes soared, and it now takes 19yrs (vs 3yrs in 1984) to save for a deposit.
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Oh yeah? You want your canal back? The canal connecting your empire? And you want your allies to support you? Mmhmmm.
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Here's a visualisation of why Diego Garcia isn't just "some tiny islands" as the Foreign Office seem to think. The red circle is the combat range of an F-35A, giving air supremacy. The yellow circle is the B-1 Lancer. Why do you *think* India/China want to "decolonise" it? #BIOT
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55-year-olds: Two-hour boozy lunches, no emails, pub by 6pm. 35-year-olds: Lunch at desk, emails and calls 24/7, work late. 25-year-olds: Hour for lunch, emails during work hours, go home by 6pm. Millennials, I think we screwed up somewhere.
literally everybody should do broadly this
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Someday, people are going to have to take a step back and think about the fact a single mum writing kids' fantasy in her spare time may not have actually been an autistic gay spreadsheet enthusiast like us.
JK rowling should have been cancelled a decade ago just for having such horrendous world building
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I grew up in a commuter town, I thought about moving back to buy. The season ticket is £7716/yr, or £740/month. Basically any savings on housing are wiped out by commuting, and I lose an extra c.2hrs a day to be sat/stood on a crowded train.
‘Young people who can’t afford a house in London should quit whinging and buy a £21,100 Darlington to London season ticket in order to access affordable housing. I am the voice of sense.’
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- I'm paying higher rates of income than literal billionaires.- My council tax is similar to that on £20m townhouses.- Services are collapsing.- My taxes are funding a generation of property owners who asset stripped the country.- Said people treat us with contempt.
british young professionals are absolutely entering a 'tax is theft' era and it's makes me sad.
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@GunterFehlinger I call to EU 🇪🇺 to join the British standards for plugs 🔌 . Makes sense - it is not an ideological issue - our plugs are simply superior
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This was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but at root level it's about housing costs spiralling vs wages and major life events being delayed vs previous generations. Avg house prices are 9x salary vs 4.5x in the 70s, so it takes a long time to save up to get started.
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I remain convinced that the story has never been deeper than a Hollywood C-lister believing she was going to become a celebrity princess and getting a culture shock. Less, "tiaras and ballgowns" more "stand up straight, you have to cut the ribbon for the wigglefield town hall".
Meghan says “I thought it was a joke” when she was told she would have to curtsy to Harry’s grandmother, the Queen on their first meeting. In her interview, Meghan performs a deep bow with her arms outstretched and says “Pleasure to meet you Your Majesty” and asked “was that ok?”
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The 1840s were known as the "Hungry Forties" in England, with bad harvests leading to hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and riots. The Corn Laws were abolished to address this. In 1847, the scale of British government aid for Ireland sparked a commercial & banking crisis.
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"We will pay special attention to Britian as our traditional enemy" 🫡
🚨🇷🇺 Russia updates the list of European capitals that will be targeted by nuclear weapon first!
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Between 2015-18, 178 train drivers had to take sick leave after a "Person Under Train" incident, for a cumulative 15,000 days, and untold trauma. Could you pick an actively worse place than a station platform to encourage suicide?.
Who at @TfL thought it was remotely appropriate to promote assisted suicide on the London Underground?
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Newark - population 72,407.Greater Manchester - population 2,822,000. Funding for Newark: £25m.Funding for Manchester: £20m. So Conservative ministers believe Conservative constituents are 49x more deserving than Labour voting constituents. Hmm.
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Stupid if predictable. A) It can't be handed "back", it was never theirs. B) It's an atoll that can't support any sizeable population.C) It has no pre-colonial indigenous population.D) It is an immensely valuable strategic outpost.E) Mauritius has cosied already to China.
🇬🇧🇲🇺 Labour opens door to handing Chagos Islands back to Mauritius.
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Netflix basic is £5.99 a month. If people are forced to give *that* up to survive, they're in poverty. Netflix is about as cheap a luxury as it's possible to get - and people need *some* luxuries or you're inviting social unrest.
Cost of Living: 'I'm 20 and I've given up booze and Netflix to cut costs'
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A sample question from the UK citizenship does not contain the correct answer.
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Handy guide to The Worst Countries In Europe. Their dated constitutions embed medieval beliefs, privilege, and deference. I've not checked, but I imagine they're among Europe's poorest, least democratic, and most repressive societies.
The Royal Family embodies everything that's rotten about our society: class privilege, snobbery, deference, stasis, self-delusion. They are the keystone in a vast edifice of class privilege. Until we #abolishthemonarchy we will struggle to be a normal, decent society. #dispatches
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The First World War claimed:.12% of ordinary soldiers. 17% of officers. 20% of Etonians who served. 200 generals. The wartime PM's own son. Class was no shield to the pain of war, and it's deeply unpleasant to selectively exclude the memory of so many brave young men.
Today we remember the millions of working-class people across the world who lost their lives to imperialist war and the fight against fascism. In their memory we work to build an anti-imperialist world, agitating against war, racism and exploitation everywhere. Never again.
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Admittedly, it's not great, but I think he's got enough support in the Knesset to ride it out?.
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A big trend of the last 20 years has been admin headcount reduction, and I am *convinced* it's a big part of our productivity crisis. Instead of one admin on 25k, you make 10 staff on 2-6x the pay do admin they're slow/inefficient at, costing vastly more. True in NHS/gvt/corps.
What? Waiting times reduced from a year to 7 weeks by employing an administrator.
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"Israeli arms factory" - it's a Glasgow unit of a French firm, and it manufactures vital UK missiles (we have a shortage) and works on critical naval IT. Obviously, the govt is not going to roll over if you threaten our defence supply chain, what did you expect?.
My wonderful, beautiful and brave friend Eva has, along with four others, been sentenced to one year in prison today in Glasgow. She has been imprisoned for taking peaceful action to save Palestinian lives - by occupying an Israeli arms factory. This is an evil decision
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The British public are fascinating. If you want a shot at a majority you need to be a royalist defence hawk who loves the NHS, loves strong borders, and defends rights for women and gays.
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Gold is a really bad asset to do this with. Say we kept it. what then?. It earns no income, so it only helps a deficit once. And what if the price then rises? Your opposition make this tweet. The Conservatives sold off billions of *income generating* assets (land, shares.).
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Unfortunately, all the people who need homes and might want to counter-protest are working full-time jobs to survive the enormous extraction of wealth by these people via our taxes, rents, and DB pension legacies.
A pensioner day trip to Edgware to protest against young people owning a home.
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Mum won an employment dispute which paid for me to go private Year 1-4. Ethos & values v different. Jacket & tie, silence, desks of 2 facing front. From age 7 - 30m HW/day, French & Latin, formal history, geography, sciences. Rugby & cricket in sports. Then I went state. .
Genuine question. What is the point of private schools, apart from to give more fortunate children a further edge in life than children of ordinary working families? . Shouldn't we just make all state schools as good as possible?.
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This, by the way, is why Britain doesn't have a sovereign wealth fund besides the [very small] Crown Estate. The Tories will sell assets to cut taxes, Labour will sell assets to throw at the NHS. Then we end up with no assets, no perpetual income streams, and need to raise tax.
The net worth of the British royal family is estimated at £22billion, according to Forbes. King Charles’ own wealth of over £2billion is independent of this. The Crown Estate is valued at about £16billion. Why don’t we give this cash to the NHS instead? . Put that on a bus!
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This is insane. We have the land. We have the route. The plans. The design. The tools and people. Just bloody well finish @HS2ltd - borrowing for capital investment is not the same as borrowing for day-to-day. Markets are not going to panic.
HS2 Ltd estimates that closing down Phase 2 will take three years to complete at a cost of up to £100 million. Disposing of Phase 2 land and property will take several years and DfT is in the process of establishing a strategy to achieve value for money from the disposals.3/9
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15 people have stopped a multi-million pound development, delivering:.- 2000 jobs.- 20k affordable workspace for 500 start-ups, .- restaurants & cafes.- an estimated £2.3m annual boost to the local economy. At least the cash and carry is OK until lack of space prices everyone out.
For over 2 years in Brixton, the local community have been fighting a Texan millionaire’s attempt to build a vanity tower block that would tear the soul out of the iconic market and turbo-charge gentrification. Tonight, the community have won. The application has been withdrawn.
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National assets should not be sold to finance day-to-day spending. Irreplaceable treasures should not be sold, full-stop. Beautiful things made to be *used* should be used, not left behind glass in museums.
King Charles addresses 'cost of living challenges' while wearing £5bn State Crown
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Can't believe the Danes would just come back and ask for more gold like this???
🚨 NEW: Train drivers are set to demand a bigger pay rise above Labour's offer of 4.5%. [@theipaper].
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If your personal finances are tight, why do you have a lock on your front door or insurance?.
If the country's finances are so bad, then why are we still spending £50 billion a year on the military?. If there's no money left, why are we spending £12,000 a minute on nuclear weapons?. If we can afford to bomb people, why can't we afford to feed people?.
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This would be a great idea. We give over £26bn a year to millionaires in state pension. Why?. Means-test it, improve generosity for the poorest, and use the excess to scrap the 2-child policy and provide free school meals for every child - with money left over.
BREAKING - ‘State Pension may become a means-tested benefit’, admits Labour’s Sir Edward Troup
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*Railcard discount to be cut*.> Panic and fury ensues.> Check the article.> My 1/3 saving was apparently 34% and is coming down to 33.4% (still > 1/3). This kinda panic will discourage people more than the actual change.
Nothing gets the economy moving quite like discouraging young and old people from travelling and spending money in neighbouring towns and cities. More genius economic policies from Labour.
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No. Absolutely not. You do not get to spend years camaigning against the most vital piece of green transport infrastructure for 100 years and then whine when you win. You've helped screw our climate targets and leave our generation with fewer tools to fight this mess.
However ministers spin this, it's another broken promise. We need a decarbonised, affordable & fully integrated transport network across the whole country. Pledges on rail are broken while Govt makes domestic flights cheaper & plans £27bn spend on roads.
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Firm believer that there should be a version of social housing for young people in urban cores. Ensuite bedroom, shared communal facilities, cheap rent. Just be a British citizen age 18-30, in/looking for work. Helps get people started and combats displacement by higher earners.
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I seriously think we need a ban on british barristers representing foreign govts against the Crown. And they *absolutely* should not do so if they are friends and former colleagues with the bloody Prime Minister. It's the most sickening conflict of interests I've ever seen.
Mauritius government has set a special cabinet meeting for 1030am Port Louis tomorrow (15th) which would be 0630 UK time - to sign off Chagos deal . Sources around negotiations telling me that Mauritius asked for a 50 year lease only on Diego Garcia, not 99 and UK may have caved.
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Hi Rachel, I sold my NVIDIA shares too early and went to cash, which is losing money in real terms. Please can Labour confirm how they will be compensating me for *my* poor investment decisions?.
The Tory mortgage bombshell is causing huge harm to families. Now they risk a snowball effect, with buy-to-let properties excluded from the mortgage charter. Labour would make sure all mortgages holders are protected - including buy-to-let.
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We must assume US no longer friendly and plan accordingly. We should lift defence spend to 3%, with renewed focus on:.- Two-division army (c.85k heads).- Expanded RN, doubling T31 order and c.2 extra T26s. Boost ASW. - 2+sqdr F35As for RAF.- Become euro logistics superpower.
Congratulations President-elect @realDonaldTrump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead.
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Disclaimer: I'm not anti-statue, I'm just very pro-library. Please support your local libraries by using them!.
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Tipping culture aside, visiting a restaurant in NYC as a european is painful. The dollar is strong, their wages much higher, and then they slap taxes and service on top of an eye-watering bill for a meal of much lower quality than you'd get in europe for the price.
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Proposal: High Speed X masterplan overlaid on this map for no particular reason linking up the dark blue bits.
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NHS observation: coordination is appalling. > Told not to eat before Ultrasound.> Offered food.> Had US.> Offered food.> Told not to eat before US.> "I've already had it?".> Confusion.> Taken for CT, they panic thinking I'm "Anthony".> Nurse needs me to tell her doctor orders.
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This infuriates me. Yes, we need council homes. But we also need homes for people who won't pass the bar for it. If you want towns and cities like Cambridge to boom, they need homes for the CEOs and highly paid professionals who create the wealth paying for all the services.
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1390 - 'Forme of Cury' English cookbook published, recipes use cloves, mace, nutmeg, cardamom, saffron etc. Dishes include lasagne, mac&cheese. 1498 - Chillies reach Asia.1607 - Jamestown, Virginia established.1873 - 1st US hamburg steak.1905 - First US pizzeria.2024 - this guy:.
@EvenMorePaxton Sort of moves the goal post considering curry isn’t British food. Lol.
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The damage done wasn't to the painting, it was to a system of social trust. Our galleries and institutions feel, after repeated attacks, they can no longer trust the public. More and more of life will slip behind protective glass, security checks, bag searches. It needs to stop.
Anna Holland is a current political prisoner in the UK. Anna was sentenced to 20 months after throwing soup at protective glass in front of a Van Gogh painting. No damage to the painting occurred, but judge Hehir seemed to base the sentencing on theoretical damage. 1/3
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If I were Labour leader, I would declare fire-sales of critical land an act of national sabotage and commit to reversing any sales without reimbursement immediately following a victory. That would deter all but the riskiest cowboy investors, and probably kill the plan.
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@CPhilpOfficial Hope your job search goes as well as the average young person's search for a property they can afford!.
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The UK fails at levelling up because it throws insufficient money at too many places. Our best shot at achieving it is to throw money at Manchester and maybe 2-3 other cities (Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow) and accept people will just have to move or commute.
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This just makes a mockery of Rachel Reeves' pretence there's no money. We have so much cash we can literally afford to pay foreign governments to take our land off us.
NEW: UK govt has offered to frontload a tranche of payments to Mauritius in a bid to finalise Chagos islands deal, acc to people familiar with talks. Proposal is seen as compromise between Mauritians' demand for more cash, and UK refusal to increase overall cost of 99-year lease.
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At a conference in London recently, a guy I know who works for a Middle East sovereign wealth fund was paid "danger money" for the week he spent here (in a 5* hotel).
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Sorry, but I don't want to pay more tax to throw money indiscriminately out the back of a truck because the people who need it are too proud to ask for help. I'd rather that got spent on repairing our hospitals and buying beds or feeding children, not handed to wealthy boomers.
Age UK warns that means testing the winter fuel allowance will hit some of the poorest in society the hardest. They include 800,000 people who are entitled to claim pension credit but do not do so. A further 1million who are just above the threshold for claiming pension credit.
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Why would we want to model our new towns on Milton Keynes when we have examples like Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, Leamington Spa, and Harrogate?
This should send a chill of dread into every Englishman's soul.
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A massive event in my life was being diagnosed with ADHD last year at 27. On the off-chance it might help, I'm going to try and explain it as best I can, how I got diagnosed and experience it, and how it's managed etc. Here we go 1/🧵.
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Imagine if we just established a state nuclear company, built 25GW of nuclear at £35/mwh and simply slashed energy costs instead of subsidising manufacturers. Forget about building to demand, build until we have so much cheap power we can export it or use for hydrogen/capture.
However UK still has v high power costs. I suspect a v large chunk of the £££ of subsidies for Tata will be offsetting high electricity prices. Because it simply doesn't make much sense here vs other countries. Another reminder of how much energy matters!
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I think we started debating this in the 1980s, and we've still not reached a decision. We're not a serious country.
Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet is split over whether to allow a third runway at Heathrow, leaving the contentious scheme in a holding pattern as Britain’s busiest airport looks to press ahead with growth plans.
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Why should they live in zone 4 or 5 only to spend half an hour looking out the train windows at new arrivals living in zone 1-2 housing their [high] taxes are paying for?. It's rapidly becoming an acute issue for young professionals in London.
@LukeTryl If the criminal barrister was satisfied living in Zone 4 or 5, rather than Zones 1 & 2 they wouldn’t need to be house sharing.
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Rail bosses' six figure salaries make no difference. A tree has fallen on the electrics. That's the remit of state-owned Network Rail. But it's also not their fault. They don't *want* trees dangerously close to tracks, but they get screamed at if they ask to cut them down.
Hundreds of passengers are stranded at Euston because of an issue with overhead wires at Watford Junction. Rail bosses make six figure salaries while our privatised infrastructure crumbles. Merry Christmas.
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Minding my own business in a London pub tonight when handed a piece of paper telling me all tories should have their throats cut. They then proceeded to make clear they thought I was a Tory. Another heartwarming Socialist outreach programme.
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Government simply shouldn't be regulating things like this. Ensuring the *public* realm is accessible is one thing, but private property should be a matter of personal choice.
New private homes shouldn't have to be wheelchair accessible. Many of the most attractive homes in the country have steps up to the front door, allowing for basements with generous natural light. Building regulations effectively ban building like this any more.
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"Why are young people all turning left-wing?". Dunno, maybe because older generations expect them to work all hours for bad pay, hand half of it to a landlord for poor quality housing, then stare at a blank wall until they fall asleep - with no real hope of anything better.
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During COVID, central London rents fell dramatically. This was, obviously, because landlords became less greedy and decided to put aside their evil ways, and unrelated to the sudden reversal of the supply/demand imbalance forcing landlords to compete for tenants.
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P.S. Libraries are also important for guaranteeing Internet and printer access and other services to the poor, homeless, and elderly. And no, the internet isn't a replacement, it has far less detail (and wikipedia is written by nerds like me - usually using library books.).
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> Sneering attitude to the precariat.> Classist tropes.> Thinks £80k is an elite salary. The upper classes may play at condescension, but the middle-middle class made it an art form.
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Honestly no better summary of Boomerism than the agony they experience missing out on a cut in a tax they're already exempt from.
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"Funding of the monarchy switched from 25% to 12% of the Crown Estate's net profits because of the rising income expected from the estate's new offshore wind deals. The King asked for the wind farm profits to be used for the wider public good.".
👑 Monarchy to get £45m funding boost as Crown Estate profits top £1bn . Read more ⬇️
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Genuinely believe the govt should just retain a tailor for ministers so their clothes actually fit and they don't look totally out their depth at smart events. Morning/Evening dress, lounge and dinner suits, and equiv. Make Britain smart again.
Honestly, this is ridiculous. Why shouldn’t members of the Government look good? They’re representing the country. Cut them some slack!
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We're extremely lucky to not only have a dignified Head of State, but one with enormous cross-generational cultural power like this.
On his campaign plane between rallies, Donald Trump reminisces about meeting the Royal Family.
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You'd largely fix this sort of thing by just setting a BBB minimum entry grade for all degrees.
More than a third of former students at seven higher education providers have failed to make a single repayment. There is no legitimate reason why these institutions should continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer.
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Tunnels aren't just bad because they vastly increase the cost (ultimately reducing the amount of HSR we get), they also make the journey much more miserable. Think how many tens, maybe hundreds of thousands would get to see the beauty of the Chilterns. Now reserved for NIMBYs.
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Only 32% of new lead tenants in social housing work. They're largely economically inactive people housed in one of the world's most expensive cities - often at low density, pushing ACTUAL workers further out.
Why should the "new arrivals" spend a half hour on the train on their minimum wage, zero hours contracts, in order to clean these people's offices and staff their prets?.
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It's crazy how 18th century Brits would set up a business, spot transport issues, and just build a 94 mile canal. But their descendents literally can't set up a temporary food stall without some miserable bastard trying to stop them.
Update: objections have now been submitted to making this permanent, and some of them are WILD. My favourite include: .• it competes with the Church.• competition is unfair.• people don't conceal where the food comes from (!).• it's next to a statue
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Brits would rather hand over a suitcase of £50 notes to a bloke in a stripey top with a bag labelled "SWAG" behind an out-of-town Halfords than open an ISA or SIPP and stick it in the stock market.
BBC is too eager to run with any sob story it's given as a "scandal". You gambled your pension on a buy to let property and it flopped. It's not a scandal, you were just foolish!.
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Living under a Conservative govt has been like being sat in a library watching them throw priceless manuscripts on a fire to keep warm because they're ideologically opposed to central heating or closing windows.
NEW: @BloombergUK Saturday read. Some Tory MPs — even Rishi Sunak allies — are starting to fear a worst-case scenario: electoral wipeout. They’re asking: what if the polls just don’t narrow?. Ie. What if it’s not Major 92 or 97, but more like Canada 93?.
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The WASPI movement is based on this notion that if govt policy changes to your disadvantage you get compensated the difference. It's insane. If I invest in a company when CGT is 20% and it rises to 25%, I don't expect an apology and compensation for it on sale, it's tough luck.
'People like myself who were affected by the change in the state pension age'. Kim Pearce told #BBCBreakfast she wants the new Labour government to take action to help the WASPI women who lost thousands when the pension age was increased .
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Was chatting to someone yesterday who sits on their church PCC. They want to install £20k of solar panels on a roof not visible from street level. They were quoted £80k costs for the planning application (incl consultants/assessments etc). 4x the actual cost of doing it.
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British farmers are paid about 34p/litre for milk, but it costs 32p/litre to produce, for 2p profit. Why haven't any supermarkets trialled a "better deal" range - keep your £1.05 carton, but have a £1.15 one where the extra 10p all goes to farmers. See if consumers will help.
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Cool fact: nuclear is so safe, it's actually likely more people have died from radiation from *wind* energy. That's bc rare earth metals needed for magnets in many turbines are found largely in NW China with radioactive material that has been dumped/run into rivers/fields.
Australia is one of the sunniest and windiest countries on Earth, but Peter Dutton would rather play a game of nuclear roulette in our backyard than support renewables.
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"Ireland are always on the right side of history". Ireland when someone risks their life to stop fascism:
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If you're working class, British, and studying at Oxford you can get £5,920 a year in bursaries. If you're black, you can get a further one-off £3,300, totally £21,000 over a degree. And if you're muslim, you can get your entire fees paid and a living costs grant.
I went to Oxford, came from a working class background. I was told that I would graduate rich with lots of well connected friends, ended up poorer than I was when I went in, living with my parents, friendless. They literally despise working class people at Oxford, lol.
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Despite an entire genre of books and films on the topic, a tragically high number of people simply lose the ability to be silly and delight in the strange and novel. Go jump in a puddle. Sing a song. Read Winnie the Pooh. Life doesn't have to be committees in 60s office blocks.
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Zone 2 in one of the most expensive cities on earth. I'll vote for whoever promises to bulldoze this for 500+ market-rate flats.
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Complaints about reading one book a week as "too much" for undergrads blows my mind. I read 6-8 books, maybe a dozen journal articles, and wrote c.4000 words of essays every week, and I wasn't even trying for a First. If you're doing that little, join a book club. Far cheaper.
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If you're wondering what £100k will buy you in Hunt's constituency, this is the cheapest three-bed in Godalming. 773sq ft. Yours for £435k, which = a £43.5k deposit and a £2358pcm mortgage, requiring a minimum income of £98k. Cute, but hardly an "upper middle class" lifestyle.
£100k is objectively a very high income BUT also not a very high income in the sort of place where you can commonly earn £100k. The UK is just poorer than it needs to be in general.
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Britain needs to tighten its labour laws significantly. Checking right to work needs to be enforced punitively. Deliveroo etc allow sub-contracting, making it too hard to trace. Start fining them £250k per illegal worker, and imprison serial illegal sub-contractors.
France’s interior minister blames Britain’s Deliveroo and barbershop economy for driving the small boats crisis.
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Millennial> "Your generation got free education".Boomer> Yes but there were fewer of us, so it was different! You can't ignore numbers!. Millennial: "Okay but can you see that there are lots more pensioners now, which is unaffordab-".Boomer: That's different! I'm entitled!.
Suddenly, the state pension is a 'benefit'. Then there are discussions about means testing. I'm getting the feeling that a growing number of people are beginning to resent those of us of a certain age. And that's without the government's attitude to us pesky oldies.
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Genuine question - how do we lift building standards?. The overall shortage lets builders get away with shoddy standards that would struggle in a genuinely competitive market, but the quality can't be left to rise *after* we have built a million homes.
48
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940
Universities need to think hard about abandoning the German research-first model and return to Oxbridge tutorial models. Use contact time to verbally challenge and debate submitted work instead of info-dumping, and it becomes significantly harder to hide behind AI.
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Firms in the City put significant resources into local (inner London) state schools - as well as offering internships, career programmes, CV workshops, mentoring schemes etc. Practically none of that available if you're a kid from Dover, Lancaster, or Truro.
Also on London privilege: Poverty is spread out; opportunity is concentrated. But there is no better place in Britain to be poor."
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970