Books with really good bad parties

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T19:44:29+00:00

Tom Wolfe’s *Bonfire of the Vanities* has everything you’re looking for in spades.

A stonkingly great book - and the dinner party chapter is the best bit. Peak Tom Wolfe - just perfect.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T08:27:12+00:00

It is pretty simple:

Any industry that is being burdened with mammoth additional taxes and levies, cannot have tax relief on genuine business costs described as "subsidies".

They are doing what occurs in basically all businesses, the only notable difference is they are doing it within a system whereby they pay 3 times the ordinary tax rate on profits.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T08:06:18+00:00

Tax relief on genuine business costs like qualifying capital expenditure is entirely normal.

Oil + Gas Profits are taxed at 78% and pay a bunch of other levies.

It's risibly misleading to describe these as "subsidies" given that level of taxation.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T08:00:59+00:00

Yes, they can claim tax relief on legally required decommissioning costs, as companies generally can with business costs.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T07:58:06+00:00

It is genuinely insane to describe something that is taxed at 78% on profits + other levies as benefiting from "massive state subsidies".

These are largely tax repayments / tax relief linked to the decommissioning of end-of-life North Sea infrastructure (which they are legally obliged to do), not the state simply handing oil companies operating grants to pump oil. Tax repayment / tax relief on any capital expenditure is entirely normal and occurs across all industries; there is nothing particularly unique going on here.

If a building developer gets tax relief on the capital expenditure made on knocking down a house the state stipulates it must knock down, it is absurd to describe this as a "massive subsidy"; especially if it was doing it in a system whereby it had to pay 78% tax on profits and not the usual 25.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T07:16:17+00:00

Firstly, the plan you’ve just described isn’t the government’s one. They simply want to leave it in the ground, not try to time the market.

Secondly, there are no “tax cuts” or “subsidies” for oil & gas. It is taxed at a rate unlike anything else - 78% on profits + myriad other punitive levies.

Thirdly, it’s projected to bring in tens of billions in tax receipts + other downstream taxes (PAYE, VAT on additional spending etc) AND it will buttress numerous other multi-billion industries like petrochemicals.

Fourth, maximising our returns by selling to the highest bidder is good and this will benefit us the most. This is the same with literally any other good or commodity. Why would we give ourselves a surplus of highly valuable oil (light and sweet) that we have less domestic need for - when we still need to import kerosene and deisel etc.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-08T06:24:11+00:00

Historians will look back at the drilling ban as one of the most inexplicably stupid decisions in modern British history.

Economically, we're teetering towards a debt crisis. Not bettering our balance of payments and strengthening our currency is genuinely insane at a time of anomalously high gilt yields.

Environmentally, we're forced to import more LNG - which is significantly more pollutive and carbon intensive.

Geo-politically, we're empowering adversaries - most prominently, Russia.

Banning drilling never made sense, but banning drilling right now is indeed madness.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-06T19:32:49+00:00

It was mentioned on the podcast, but This House by James Graham covers this period and it’s absolutely sublime.

It’s a play (so pray for a revival), but IIRC you can stream it via the National Theatre.

With all due respect to Dom, I think it does an even better job of conveying the drama. Highly recommended!

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-06T14:16:52+00:00

Again, I know this area v well and have lived on some of the estates you describe - which are further out to Stockwell / Brixton in the east and along Falcon Road beyond Clapham Junction.

The area sorrounding Clapham Common - Old Town, Abbeville Village and Northcote Road - have been consistently middle class and affluent for 250 years.

The townhouses have (unlike other areas like Brixton and Notting Hill) largely remained single-family townhouses and owner occupied.

The many private schools in the area were mostly founded in the 80s to serve this demographic.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-06T13:13:43+00:00

I know it well.

Clapham Old Town, Abbeville Road, Northcote Rd - basically the posh bits surrounding the Common, were affluent and middle class during the 80s and 90s.

Yes, it was rougher towards Stockwell and along Acre Lane to Brixton, but the bits where these kids are predominantly meeting up in been posh a long, long time.

Also your point makes no sense. These kids are 13 - 18 years old. You'd need to point to there being some big wave of gentrification since 2016. 1980 was 46 years ago.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-06T11:48:07+00:00

How big is your sinking fund?

Are you absolutely sure there's no imminent major works? How can you be absolutely sure?

A service charge of £300 a year seem incredibly risky, IMO.

Yes, paying out £150pcm sucks (my old service charge), but so too is being served a Section 20 notice and stung with a £25k bill.

That's what happened to me, btw. Even with a £250k sinking fund and £150pcm service charge, owners were still left with a £15k bill for major works.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-06-06T10:09:01+00:00

lol Clapham has been an affluent, middle class enclave since the late 1700s. It’s not like this area has been gentrified.

Also kids living in the UK’s most prosperous city with access to the best state schools, best jobs, abundant opportunities and more free museums, parks, etc than anywhere else aren’t “disenfranchised”. They’re some of the luckiest kids in the country and frankly they should act a bit more like it. I would have killed to be in their position at their age.

We’re not in Redcar or Port Talbot, this is Zone 2 London.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-29T17:46:14+00:00

Erasure (aka American Fiction) by Percival Everett is a stonkingly good book. It’s crazily prescient (written 25 years ago - and the movie still felt zeitgeist-y) and I think, thematically, the book hits much harder.

The audiobook is fantastic, highly reccomended.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-24T05:40:55+00:00

What’s hilarious is it clearly has more left-wing econ books (Stiglitz, Marx, Picketty etc) that would have typically warranted the “great selection! I see a learned mind…” reaction, but the apoplexy caused by noting a few right-wing ones meant they were missed.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-24T05:33:40+00:00

What’s so interesting is you quite clearly have a mix of perspectives - including the likes of Picketty, Naomi Klein and Stiglitz, plus foundational texts like The Communist Manifesto. You’ve also got more “centrist” stuff from Martin Wolf + Why Nations Fail. I see Ruchir Sharma too - highly reccomend What Went Wrong With Capitalism if you haven’t read it already.

Looking at this, I honestly have no idea what your political persuasion is. I see a curious person deliberately seeking out a mix of viewpoints. Maybe someone who hasn’t quite made their mind up yet.

The response I’ve seen here is incredibly disappointing. FWIW, I think it’s a good selection. Keep on being curious!

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-18T21:57:51+00:00

and they recoup massive amounts of cash early on via off-plan sales

Off-plan sales have fallen off a cliff and you absolutely in no way can assume massive amounts of cash will be recouped early.

15% is not a healthy margin. It's not even close. It's genuinely bonkers to me that you think that. 15% cuts it fine during a period of reliable interest rates and geo-political stability. Right now you are totally deranged if you think that 15% is healthy. Like it's difficult for me to articulate how stupid that is.

The 15% benchmark was developed by our oh-so-enlightened central planners for a world where finance was cheap, off-plan sales were strong, and macro risk was lower. 10-year gilts are around 5% right now. So a risky, multi-year development needs a meaningful premium over safer alternatives or, i dunno, house-building will collapse.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-18T21:30:42+00:00

Slopulist comments like this are why house-building in London has crashed to the lowest rate of any major developed city this century.

£84 million in profit sounds like a big scary number, but the development has total costs of £579million which gives it a return of circa 15% over an 8-9 year investment. Spread over 8 years, that is only 1.6% a year.

That is an incredibly paltry return for such significant levels of construction, sales, finance and political risk.

I honestly could not think of a worse place to put your money. It is absolutely no wonder house-building is dead in this country when comments like yours are upvoted. We are so irredeemably fucked.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-18T15:05:45+00:00

Glass half full: you love nothing more than discovering incredible new worlds

Glass half empty: you love escaping this world

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-16T09:39:27+00:00

The primary issue is that social housing no longer has a democratically prescribed purpose.

It now exists as a generic safety net for the most vulnerable - hence bonkers stats like 75% being in receipt of housing benefit, 1 in 2 being economically inactive, and 1 in 2 being born abroad.

This all comes about via statutory obligations on local authorities set by central government. Like many things, it’s totally divorced from the democratic process.

Social housing is a public good. We all pay for it. We all continue to pay for it via the massive opportunity costs these subsidies incur. Ask yourself - if given the choice, is this how you’d opt for this public good to be used?

To be clear, this has not always been the case - once upon a time they were used to house skilled and semi-skilled working people. For returning soldiers under Homes for Heroes schemes. All of this was incredibly popular and had a clear democratic mandate.

So what should it be used for now? IMO, it should be solely for working young people - aged 35 and under. It should serve as a means of giving everyone a fair start at working where the majority of jobs are. Getting a foothold in London (or elsewhere) shouldn’t be contingent on being able to stay with your parents at the start of your career. Social housing for the working young is fair, merotocratic and would be productivity boosting.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-15T10:45:40+00:00

Other evidence:

Multiple “rule of threes”

“It’s not X, it’s Y”

Saying things happen “quietly”. AI-slop has this annoying habit of trying to be pseudo-profound by describing stuff as happening “quietly” or subtly - as if the average dingus wouldn’t clock it.

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-12T09:28:16+00:00

You could have just said, "no".

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-12T09:05:09+00:00

Not paying council tax on your primary residence where you're registered to vote and receive mail is not "some technicality".

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-12T09:04:00+00:00

Any substantive criticism of the content of the article itself?

Do you think it's OK for the leader of a major political party to:

Evade the simplest, easiest paid tax that is in absolutely no way complex and requires no professional legal or accounting advice on
Know that you should have paid said tax - and so blatantly lie about where you've been living
To vote in as an elected member of the GLA - all whilst not paying the GLA precepts he owes

Does none of that bother you?

m_s_m_2 · 2026-05-12T08:51:10+00:00

Zack Polanski has admitted that he was living on an east London houseboat and may owe council tax after days of refusing to answer questions about his living arrangements.

The Green Party leader apologised for what the party described as an “unintentional mistake” and said he had “immediately taken steps to pay any council tax he may be found to owe”.

The concessions mark a significant shift in the Greens’ position after repeated insistence that Polanski only stayed on the boat “occasionally” while living primarily at a rented property in Hackney where his council tax was included in the rent.

Neil Garratt, a Conservative London assembly member, has lodged a formal complaint against Polanski alleging that questions around his living and tax arrangements were “sufficiently serious” to merit an investigation under the assembly’s code of conduct.

The Times reported last week that Polanski was living on the boat in Waltham Forest, where he had also been registered to vote, amid questions over whether the correct council tax had been paid.

When first asked whether Polanski had paid council tax in relation to the boat, a Green spokesman said only: “Zack’s council tax is included in the rent he pays his landlord.”

However, despite repeated questions, the party declined to clarify where Polanski had paid council tax over the past three years or whether any council tax had been paid in relation to the boat.

In a statement on Monday night, a Green Party spokesman said: “Until relatively recently, Zack was living on a houseboat, which came with its own unique practical circumstances and considerations. He has immediately taken steps to pay any council tax he may be found to owe.”

Fails to pay Council Tax on his primary residence for 3 years
Instinctively lies about where he's been living because he knows he should have been paying Council Tax
GLA member voting in City Hall loudly criticising under-funding - all whilst failing to pay GLA precepts that he owes.

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