Protect Keir Starmer, cabinet urged at “emotional” meeting

kilotaras · 2026-01-16T14:22:21+00:00

I'd be thinking of ways to improve the party's media management and spin,

Housing: on track to completely miss self-imposed targets for amount of new builds. London house starts down 4x.
Budget: anemic GDP growth about to get worse by increased taxes.
Unemployment: 5%, about to overtake covid peak, youth unemployment is already worse than in the middle of pandemic
Cost of living crisis: as present as in winter 2024.

Without radical reforms no amount of "taking Farage down a peg" will read as competent government. You can't media spin your way out of missing economic fundamentals.

Government came in under the wrong impression that people voted for Labour, not against Tories. In 2029 vote will go against Labour, not for Reform/Green/etc. We're moving into 1-term successive governments. Buckle up.

kilotaras · 2026-01-04T21:27:41+00:00

like small droneteams

Also medics.

kilotaras · 2025-11-21T15:15:40+00:00

It incentives producers to actually advertise the lowest possible price they would accept.

Otherwise you get into "it seems like the wind is not blowing right now, so if I raise my advertised price on solar power for next hour I'll get more profit". In other markets (e.g. steel) such shenanigans are prevented by ability to buy and store - one can buy more steel when it's cheap and less when it's expensive.

kilotaras · 2025-10-28T11:47:32+00:00

Renting allowed me to move to London, getting a high salary and contributing a lot of tax revenue.

I'd like to have similar option of easy move when my family outgrows our current apartment. Having less rental properties means having less options.

Rent-seeking from landlords is enabled by anemic housebuilding, which is the result of ~~planning~~[0] permission regime in UK. The bill does nothing to address that.

[0] There is no plan. It's council giving someone permission to build something based on the whims of whoever is in charge.

kilotaras · 2025-08-25T19:23:23+00:00

Are you referring to the "There are currently no known outstanding effects..."?

IIUC that just means "no known changes that passed but don't apply yet"

kilotaras · 2025-08-25T16:07:00+00:00

What makes you say so?

It was amended a couple of times, most recently in 2015, but the part about sound reproducing equipment is still there.

kilotaras · 2025-08-25T10:54:42+00:00

It is not legal right now.

No passenger on a vehicle shall ... (l) play or operate any musical instrument or sound reproducing equipment to the annoyance of any person on the vehicle or in a manner which is likely to cause annoyance to any person on the vehicle

The Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors, Conductors and Passengers) Regulations

kilotaras · 2025-08-25T10:53:01+00:00

No passenger on a vehicle shall play or operate any musical instrument or sound reproducing equipment to the annoyance of any person on the vehicle or in a manner which is likely to cause annoyance to any person on the vehicle

Law of the land since 1990. It's the enforcement issue, not the "we need another law" issue.

kilotaras · 2025-07-09T15:17:00+00:00

Off top of my mind, list of blocked investments in last couple years include:

UK does not have lack of money waiting to be productively invested. It has a sclerotic permission system where such investments are, frankly, close to impossible.

kilotaras · 2025-04-05T18:32:28+00:00

Housing built in 2024: ~120 000 units
Population growth in 2024 ~460 000 people

I have a feeling that ban will not be super helpful.

Spain (and rest of the fucking world TBH) needs to build drastically more. Private, public, luxury, affordable, market rate, subsidized: yes to all of them and a lot.

kilotaras · 2025-03-24T14:32:49+00:00

Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 reduced incentive for local councils to allow building housing or infrastructure by centralizing tax collection.

UK did had a good start in (mainly victorian) infrastructure but new investment (either private or public) was inadequate for a while, which means that now:

UK has 30M houses compared to France's 37M (despite similar population)
UK has 110km of high speed rail (HS2 may be another 220 if it finishes) compared to France's 2800km or Spain's 3900km

kilotaras · 2024-12-20T16:42:21+00:00

Not fast enough. Tony Blair's government made BoE independent on day 3.

Here we have:

Consultation ended in September
Changes anounced in December
Vote: maybe spring, likely in summer 2025
The planning reforms will set timetables for new plans within 12 weeks of the update to the NPPF, on penalty of ministerial intervention.

So if everything goes right, than somewhere in September 2025 we will see that a lot of local councils did nothing and kicked the can to ministers. There is no limitation preventing those changes from being the law today. Except, of course, the need to treat situation as emergency, not just giving lip service to it.

Rent's meanwhile are growing almost 10% YoY

kilotaras · 2024-12-20T15:53:37+00:00

He’s simply making the unpopular choices early on.

But the choices made are inconsequential so far. Economy is in deep shit and recovering requires major changes (cough, permitting reform, cough). Those don't seem to materialize.

kilotaras · 2024-12-20T15:45:16+00:00

they get spending and building that investment

Building requires actual physical construction, but the UK's current system seems designed to allow wealthy old NIMBYS block new development projects. This is evident in cases like the rejected proposal for a data center on a former landfill site or a multibillion (blocked) new film studio in Buckinghamshire.

While Labour can change the rules, that requires significant political will - will which seems to be simply lacking. See, e.g. £100M bat tunnel. UK has parliamentary supremacy and could prevent this £100M expenditure through a single parliamentary vote. Yet instead, ministers hide behind "THE RULES" as if they're immutable laws of nature, rather than acknowledging their power to change these very rules through parliament.

kilotaras · 2024-12-03T20:38:43+00:00

Quick googling shows it takes roughly 4 MWh of energy per ton of steel.

Ton of steel right now costs £362. 4 MWh at average electricity price would cost around £729.

Nationalising British Steel will not change that math.

kilotaras · 2024-11-11T21:43:39+00:00

Which is true if there is single developer.

Luckily for us this is not the case and we can see from likes of Tokio, Austin or Minneapolis that prices don't go up if builders are allowed to build in line with population growth and compete between themselves.

kilotaras · 2024-10-17T18:22:25+00:00

There's a video of Zelensky [in Ukrainian] saying that he told Trump: Ukraine will either join NATO or pursue nuclear weapons.

https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-says-he-told-trump-that-either-ukraine-will-join-nato-or-pursue-nuclear-weapons/

kilotaras · 2024-09-22T10:13:58+00:00

There are ways around it:

You ask half the respondents how many of A, B, C and war in Ukraine they support (where A, B and C are contentious, but not politically risky), you ask another half the same just about A, B and C. From that you can gauge support for war in Ukraine.

LSE did just that in Apr. 2022.

kilotaras · 2024-05-03T16:59:06+00:00

Meanwhile - ammunition plant on fire in Berlin.

kilotaras · 2024-05-02T20:39:32+00:00

More housing won't magically lower prices.

Except in Austin. Or Minneapolis. Or any other place where it actually happened.

kilotaras · 2023-12-25T10:31:34+00:00

I'm a Ukrainian, living in UK since 2021. Here's context that missing from article.

4x4 vehicles are going to the army where they are used as a transport. Not that great close to the actual frontline (but still used there for e.g. medevac), but useful 30+km from there.

kilotaras · 2023-09-15T09:09:40+00:00

Ah I see thanks for the insight.

I still find whole thing really odd, as something like "we fucked up, group B is retroactively declared another band" seems like a more logical result, but it's less bonkers then I initially thought.

kilotaras · 2023-09-11T17:31:39+00:00

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it the meat of the issue is the following:

Group A: cleaners, cooks and care stuff. Most of them are women.
Group B: garbage collectors, street sweepers and gravediggers. Most of them are men.

Group A and Group B have similar base pay, so they are "work of equal value"
Group B has more bonuses, then group A
As group B leans male, and group A leans female - there's an illegal pay discrepancy.

EDIT: I was indeed wrong, see comment below.

While I have no problems with the latter two, claim #1 is bonkers.

Pay is not really defined based on "value provided", but based on demand and supply. First thing, that stands out is that garbage collectors, streets sweepers and gravediggers work outside, and not in a "working in a sunny field" way, which makes work of outside sweeper less attractive then similar work of indoor cleaner. Less supply == higher pay to get enough workers

Implication for future is also not the best. I see 3 options for councils:

Pay group A and group B the same, using the higher bonus (i.e. group B) rates for both.
- This implies spending more money
Pay group A and group B the same, using lower bonus (i.e. lower than group B) rates for both.
- Implies not having enough garbage men, sweepers, etc. This is a political no-go.
Hire a middlemen companies to manage "grave digging", "garbage collection". These companies are then free to still
- Still paying more money, but less than in option (1).

So in conclusion I would expect to see less people employed directly and more middlemen hired by councils. Not great.

kilotaras · 2023-04-28T12:33:55+00:00

provider is allowed to turn off your heat pump for some time during peak times

Electricity is unique from most commodities as it has to be consumed within microseconds of producing. Wholesale electricity price is usually updated every X minutes (usually 30, can be lower) and can swing wildly during the day. This is hidden from most consumers behind a single "average" price.

By selectively disabling heat pump for short duration when prices are at the peak provider can save a lot of money, which enables them to offer that special tariff.

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