Anna Clarke

Agree it's an interesting read. Didn't really cover the environmental angle much though. I'd be interested to know what benefits there are for carbon/methane emissions (aware that sheep are bad), and also what upland farmers can do instead with their land.

Yes, well done @jdportes.bsky.social and others for getting this changed. Revised version below is now more accurate.

Sector’s average interest cover dragged down by small number of large providers, RSH report says The sector’s average interest cover has fallen due to a small number of very large providers, according to a new report from the Regulator of Social Housing.

New figures out today illustrate the stress the social housing system is under.
"The metric means that the sector is generating just 87p in underlying cash per pound of interest after major repairs are taken into account". www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/sectors...

Maybe it's best the government does just focus on the things it can do here and now. And we accept that the future isn't certain and try to build resilience and flexibility into our plans.

It would certainly be easier to invest and build new homes if we had long term certainty of government plans. But I'm just not sure that's possible with a multi-party democratic electoral system, and unpredictable global events affecting the economy.

People have been calling for a long term strategy for years. But I'm not really expecting it'll have much in it that we don't already know. The Homelessness Strategy was largely re-statements of policies we already knew about. Similarly with the recently-published Fuel Poverty Strategy.

The long term housing strategy was due to be published "shortly" a year ago. So I won't be holding my breath....

I subscribe and I think you get a quota of gift articles

We're not responding to this one (a bit technical, and too many other consultations out at the same time). But I'd be very interested in seeing your views on it.

This is quite a chart.
- 1995-2005 - *massive* house price growth.
- Last 20 years - house prices broadly flat, in real terms. www.thetimes.com/article/9302...

This is quite a chart.
- 1995-2005 - *massive* house price growth.
- Last 20 years - house prices broadly flat, in real terms. www.thetimes.com/article/9302...

You should. They ought to do more than quote someone without checking facts.

The "immediate access" to social housing is particularly bad misinformation - it's a scarce resource that many people would like but can't access. They're all too ready to believe that immigrants skip the queue. In reality of course they get access only to the housing register, like everyone else.

A fair chunk of them will be returning students (so a problem for university finances, but less so for labour supply). But some will be people who came on work visas and I don't think we know much about which sectors they're leaving or what happens to the jobs there were doing.

That's a fair question. If you asked a load of housing experts their best guess I don't think they'd come out that high on average.

Indeed. But there isn't a magic formula you can use that turns multiple - mostly helpful but essentially qualitative - planning reforms into numbers of new homes. So by "modelling" you kind of mean "guessing".

I'm not sure the OBR is very well equipped to model the impact of planning reform - it's not really a hard science. (Plus they obviously did these forecasts before Trump decided to start a new war - sending oil prices/inflation spiraling up)

That's interesting - both the Tories and the LibDems are perhaps more split than we might think (Tories don't all prefer Reform to Labour, and vice versa with LibDems - don't all prefer Labour to Reform)

I don't think she really announced anything did she? But agree it had a very strong air of having been written prior to the weekend, and not updated. No mention of possible need for increased military spending, or to protect people from big spike in gas prices.

Is there a list that anyone's assembled of people who *do* know what they're talking about in the middle east?

If only picking them up like that *was* actually fatal....

Culture and traditional voting patterns of the people she grew up amongst?

I think it's to do with not counting EU/non-EU differently any more post Brexit. See www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Maybe. But the problem is never the total numbers. The possible problems are multiple and sector specific. Eg if we see a big rise in unfilled roles in health and social care. But I'm not aware of any data showing that as yet.

I think that's just guesswork though - no sign as yet of immigration numbers falling low - it's just the unwinding of the 2022 boom that's causing the projected low net rate. Things we can't predict - such as foreign wars - have caused a lot of the changes in immigration rates historically.

Which ones are you thinking of?

And that's very likely what we'll trend back towards once the large cohort of students etc who came around 2022 head back home. We are not facing a crisis of depopulation, or even a new normal of much lower net immigration.

I don't think you can really say there's a specific level of immigration needed to avoid economic harm - as it's very sector specific and depends whether we can find other ways to train people, use tech to fill gaps, off-shore, etc.

The pro immigration argument is never about overall numbers though. It's about specific job sectors where immigration could help alleviate shortages (or, for the education sector, where immigrants pay high fees). Nobody has any real motivation to argue for total numbers being higher.

I think Labour have always struggled with the notion that some working class people can be right-wing.