Rockets

BBC and the IFS https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2e12j4gz0o From BBC Verify: Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said Reeves "may be overegging the £22bn black hole". What about the rest of the £22bn? The government published a breakdown, external of how it had got from the Treasury's £9.5bn shortfall in February to the £22bn "black hole". It said that there was another £7bn between February and the actual Budget in March, as departments found out about new spending pressures and the government spent more on the NHS and the Household Support Fund There was a final £5.6bn between then and late July, which includes almost a month when Labour was in power. That was largely caused by increases in public sector pay. It was the Labour government that accepted the recommendations of the Pay Review Bodies (PRBs), but they said that the previous government should have budgeted for more than a 2% increase in public sector pay. Prof Stephen Millard from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research think tank told BBC Verify: "The 'political' question is whether you would count this as part of the fiscal black hole or not. If you do, then you get to the £22bn figure; if not, then you’re left with around £12.5bn to £13.5bn." It isn't this at all. When you run on an agenda of change and cleaning up politics and you put all of the eggs of despair in a basket at the door of the previous government you better hope you have a long honeymoon period to give you time to deliver the change you have promised. Look at the NHS, before the election it was all...it's broken because of 14 years of Tory incompetence and the implication was that Labour could fix is quickly. Then Wes Streeting (who is one of the smarter political cabinet members and is clearly able to play the long game) started talking about the need to change the NHS before the election - he talked about privatising parts of it (much to the annoyance of the left). He was being pragmatic because the only magic wand that is going to fix the NHS is massive reform - it's broken and has been for decades and throwing money at it has just papered over the cracks. Now Labour talk about the NHS needing 10 years of healing for there to be real difference and people are saying....what..... Words in opposition are easy; actions in government are a lot harder and I fear that given the structural issues caused by Covid, the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine (and now maybe a massive US/China trade war if Trump isn't bluffing) that we are heading to constant one-term governments. I don't think there was a government (and correct me if I am wrong) that survived Covid and in a lot of countries since Covid they have had regular government change (I think what is playing out in the US with them voting Trump in is reflective of the challenges all countries face). Labour massively over-egged the 14 years of hurt (who could blame them) but it is going to make things a lot tougher for them as they have set the expectation that changing government cures all the ills and as we have seen in the first 90 days of their tenure that is very much not the case. Completely agree but the big risk if Farage. If Labour don't deliver what they promised or hit "working people" then the populists win - it's happening everywhere. Dangerous, dangerous times ahead and Labour have to get it right - for all our sakes - no matter what party we support. P.S. Lammy is also one of the better Labour front-bench folks - he just is suffering from Labour's inability to think far enough ahead to realise that some posts might come back to haunt you...but in his defence did anyone really think Americans would be daft enough to vote him in again....;-)

Or the government have it wrong. Certainly picking a fight with farmers, the very definition of working people, is probably not going to end well. The problem here is that Labour hung their hat on not taxing "working people" which was clearly the output of some awful focus group and clearly not the term they wanted to use. They failed to properly qualify what a working person is and it is now coming back to haunt them because the very definition of a working person is anyone who is, well, working and that covers a whole gamut of people and salaries. Don't pick a fight with farmers if you have stated you aren't going after working people because public opinion will be against you. Farmers are the backbone of any country and work so hard and yes, there are some that are incredibly well off but the majority are not and farming is a trade that gets handed down through the generations. And farmers will make their case very public in ways other groups won't. Labour's communication has been awful but they got a free pass before the election because everyone was so focused on how awful the Tories were. But now they are in power and they are tripping themselves up because in leadership you need more than soundbites. The "Son of a Toolmaker" is the type of thing that haunts politicians until the end of their career. Clearly someone decided to detach Keir from his grammar school, university (including Oxford), legal career, knight of the realm background. His face when everyone laughed when he mentioned it during one of the pre-election debates was a picture. He is the son of a toolmaker but you look a bit silly when people then say yes but your dad ran a tool-making company... Coming into power on a ticket of "look how they have been behaving" and then behaving in many ways the Tories were has been a disaster for politicians of all parties. The clothing funding and access to no.10 was just a nightmare for them and in these days where today's newspaper is no longer tomorrow's chip paper the comments made about Trump (which I am sure most people can agree with) are just embarrassing. Winter Fuel Tax has been a disaster. Yes, there are many pensioners who don't need it but those aren't going to be the ones talking to the media about how awful the winter is going to be and people only remember those shouting the loudest. The budget was an interesting one. I was watching Theo Pathitis on TV and he had swung from the Tories to Labour ahead of the election and was talking about the impact of the Employer NI and you could tell that he was very carefully choosing his words as he knew how hard this was going to be on business and what the implications are but clearly didn't want to be left with egg on his face as he was telling everyone to vote Labour ahead of the election. Labour were, understandably, happy to right the massive wave of Tory discontent and pre-election all of the world's ills were down to the Tories. The first speech Starmer gave after winning spoke nothing about the previous government but everything about global challenges that were going to make it tough. The challenge for Labour is they convinced people that every problem was down to the Tories and that removing them would solve everything but things are not as straight forward as that. I senses things changing when they announced the 22bn blackhole and many people said...but 9bn of that are based on decisions you made in relation to public sector pay rises. Labour are finding out, to their cost, that being in opposition is easy. Being in power is not.

DKHB - come on, admit it. You got it wrong. You posted incorrect information and by doing so have highlighted the very point I was making about Dulwich Roads - that some, in their keenness to make a point and further their ideological attack on cars, post misleading and inaccurate information every time they see an accident and never bother to correct it when they get it wrong. You were clearly hoping it was an accident caused by speed and that it happened during school rush hour.

Earl, perhaps more instructive is that the OP insinuates that speed was a factor and that this happened during rush hour (the suggestion being that this was during the school run so children were at risk) - when a quick search of the web find media articles saying that the accident happened at 5am. The article also says the driver fled the scene so, of course, we can all make assumptions about why that might have been. https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/24734134.dulwich-village-car-abandoned-crash/ But this goes to demonstrate the challenge I have with people knee-jerk posting without ever taking time to determine what actually happened. DKHB took a leaf out of the Dulwich Roads playbook by posting inaccurate/misleading information that painted a picture very different to the reality.

DKHB - What an awful accident. Was everyone ok - does anyone know what caused it? Thanks for pointing out it is a 20mph zone - by this are you trying to suggest that speed was a factor here? What time did this happen? It looks like Dulwich Roads was on the scene a little bit after you! https://x.com/DulwichRoads/status/1858796233034182959?s=19

The demonising of anyone who dares challenge the council's point of view and actions is a dangerous precedent. First it started (often by the council themselves) as a narrative of a "small vocal minority' and when that didn't dampen the voices against the measures the council's supporters leaned into the Tory/covid-denier/pertrolhead/fascist narrative. Still that didn't work. It's a lazy tactic to try and demonise the opposition and one the left leans in on all the time. Sadiq did it during his people's question time - portray anyone who had a differing view as some nut-job fascist. Doing so is politically weak and actually demonstrates you lack a rational counter-argument to the points being raised and you're having to resort to childish name calling. The challenge is sometimes, as we have seen in the US elections, it massively backfires and stokes the fires of populism and creates incredibly dangerous situations. What astonishes me the most is, in relation to the years of discussion on this forum about these measures is how some, who support the council, will defend them to the death and turn a blind eye to things that if another political party was doing them they would be fighting against. There has been so much idealogical blindness by some that is empowers those in power to continue behaving appallingly.

Mal, this isn't going away. The council is reaping what they sowed. They have, and continue to, behave appallingly, treating their constituents with contempt. They lie and they manipulate in the process of getting what they want. A increasingly large number of local residents will not forgive them for that and with each own goal they make it worse for themselves as more people become aware of their hypocrisy.

I do wonder sometimes whether councillors are coming on here and posting under someone else's name such is the blind faith some are putting in the council....all very Leo Pollack at times...and when you read the stuff some post probably the only plausible explanation for the fan-boi approach to everything the council does.

Their comms has been diabolical. The "son of a toolmaker" and "working people" soundbites may have placated an electorate before an election but they will come back to haunt you after it and will bite you hard if things don't go well. If they don't improve things soon it is going to be a long parliament for them and there are no signs things are getting better. Amazing as they had 14 years to prepare for this but being in opposition is far, far easier than running a country.

Do you actually know what an own-goal is? Let me give you an example....a council using paving from India for an active travel intervention designed to help reduce emissions... Just how is that an own-goal for One Dulwich...please do explain.. I tell you what, thank goodness for someone going to look at the packing cases for the paving slabs to see where they were from to expose the council's hypocrisy...a bit of citizen journalism holding those in power to account! We should be celebrating them and if it was OneDulwich well done to them.

We will never know will we because the council, in their quest to waste £1.5m to make changes to the junction that do and add nothing more than the previous version, decided to source paving slabs from halfway around the world and having them shipped to Dulwich. It was already a public space before this latest round of pointless works was it not?

No and Wes Streeting is heading in this direction because he knows the NHS is broken and was never built to cope with the demands currently being placed on it. A paid-for approach in some shape or form, and massive reforms, is the only way the NHS can survive - neither of which the left or unions will be pleased about.

And I worry this Labour government with all of it's own goals and the tax increases is playing into Farage's hands. With Trump winning in the US, his BFF Farage is likely to benefit from strained relations between the US administration and the UK one. As Alastair Campbell said on a recent episode of The Rest is Politics who would not have wanted to be a fly on the wall of the first call between Angela Rayner and JD Vance....those two really are oil and water. Scary, scary times right now and there seems to be a lack of leadership and political nous within the government at a time when we really need it - there aren't many in the cabinet who you think will play well on the global stage.

Labour seems to be taxing the many to get to the few in so many policies they have implemented. Look at the farmer situation: yes there are some rich farmers but the vast majority are not and they are, in my mind, the very definition of a working person - the very people this country relies upon. Most are family businesses. They were re-running some of the Simon Reeves programmes on the Lake District and it was filmed just after Covid but they featured an 18 year old farmer who was took over his parents farm after they both died of cancer within months of each other. He and his school friends were mucking in to keep the farm going and continue the family business. Today, he would have been hit by a big tax bill too. The challenge is Rachel Reeves' budget desperately needs growth and with the news today that the economy barely grew on, ostensibly, fears of what the budget was going to hit people with and the fact post budget many businesses are saying costs will have to go up due to the increases in employee NI but at the same time saying wage growth, and even jobs, will be impacted we may be heading towards a very nasty perfect storm. Public services desperately need reform not just more money. Wes Streeting said that reform was needed in the NHS and he was talking in a manner more akin to a Tory health secretary than a Labour one!

Mal, I was just challenging you on what you were basing this on? Just wondering if you had anything to back this statement up with.

Malumbu - I love how you say let's keep it on subject and then start mentioning speeding drivers! 😉 Anyway, my two-penneth worth. - I love the burn of starting and finishing a ride with Col du Dog Kennel Hill or Col du Sydenham Hill - the joy of getting to the top and free-wheeling down the other side (and making good use of the bus filter at the bottom of DKH). - the thing I love about cycling in the area and across London is that there are so many routes you can take - there used to be a website where it would plot a route that avoided the busiest roads and it was great. I would cycle to Hammersmith and hardly see a car as the route would use backstreets via Loughborough Junction, Battersea, around the back of Queen's Club - although I once had a pedal shear off in a torrential downpour in Battersea and had to wheel the bike home. - The fact there are some great backstreet routes into central London - I hate floating cycle lanes next to parked cars - just a badly designed accident waiting to happen. Hunts Slip is an awful example of this and the ludicrous cycle lane across the top of Sydenham Hill has one too - we should not be putting cycle lanes in as a traffic calming measure which is why Sydenham Hill is so awful and actually increase dangers to cyclists - I tend to try to avoid roads like Lordship Lane and use the backstreets to navigate around them but Underhill and Crystal Palace Road have become awful due to displaced traffic from the things I will not mention but I get an immense sense of satisfaction cycling around Hindmands and Oakhurst to get to Balfes and not seeing a car.

Which shops - what are you basing this on? Only today Clean Air for All Dulwich reckons only two support the measures (I think we can guess which ones) and another one is about to close... https://x.com/DulwichCleanAir/status/1856971581471560101?s=19 The overly glowing reaction to this from the usual suspects is so predictable...talk to most folks who live in the area about the money wasted, the challenges the emergency services have had with the council and the India stone debacle and the reaction is very, very different. But, to be fair, is it any wonder the council acts the way they do when some are happy to back them even when they get things very, very wrong? In some people's eyes they seem to be able to do no wrong. I suspect Dulwich Square will haunt the council and councillors for a very long time - this will be their legacy - wasting tax-payers money on a vanity project that created a bigger environmental footprint than was necessary delivered zero tangible difference to what was there 6 months ago and took desperately needed money away from more pressing needs. If their only KPI was to make some active travel lobbyists happy then congrats to them! Perhaps the government's new Covid Corruption tsar could take a look to work out what has been going on here....;-)

Budget has seen to be no object on the square given the millions wasted on it - so are you saying that if the price isn't right then it's ok to do harm to the environment...that's a very slippery slope if you are allowing the council that escape lane....? I don't think it is £1.5m better than what was there before they started these works - a lot of my neighbours say they preferred what was there a few months ago - that it now feels like a spaceship landing pad. I just think about the improvements to other parts of Dulwich/Southwark that could have been made with that £1.5m budget that has been wasted (and done unknown harm to the environment in the process).

The council apologist in chief strikes again.... Malumbu, I know you would love this to be in the lounge so there isn't any attention on the council's failure but it is a transport hub. If it is true that these slabs are from India then Cllr McAsh has some very serious questions to answer as this has happened on his watch and you cannot take a position of closing a road on the basis of helping the environment and then go and cover it in environmentally damaging materials sourced from half way around the world and transported on a cargo ship. These are elected officials entrusted by us to do the right thing - they have not done that here and it makes a mockery of their environmental stance and is beyond embarrassing - you have to ask just how much oversight and governance the likes of Cllr McAsh are providing. They have also embarrassed those supporters who have blindly stood by them with their support for the changes in DV. Their "consultation" part of the website (which has been stripped of all the detail on the consultation plans interestingly enough and is now a much more abbreviated version of the previous site) https://www.southwark.gov.uk/parking-streets-and-transport/improving-streets-and-spaces/streets-people states: How we're making streets healthier and greener in Dulwich ...which is laughable in light of their choice of materials...

The short answer is that the council don't monitor displacement. In their world traffic "evaporates". Now, they did do some monitoring and claimed that traffic was "reduced across the whole" but that monitoring was massively flawed because it did no monitoring on displacement routes such as Underhill Road, Crystal Palace Road, Barry Road or the A205. Remember, the council originally only monitored on the streets within the LTN which shows their motivation for doing robust monitoring of displaced traffic - they really didn't want to have to and were forced to. Bottom-line is LTNs do nothing to remove traffic from roads - they only move it from one road to another - it passes the problem to someone else. No it won't but this will be considered a win for the council as it stops the traffic going through Dulwich.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/dulwich/ltn-hailed-as-eco-friendly-using-indian-stones-quarried-5000-miles-away/

Ha ha, Earl doesn't seem like the pub going type! 😉 If we did I certainly wouldn't want to get into an argument with them! 😉

I think Earl makes a very good point that needs considering here - idling cars left that junction 4 years ago (and this is a good thing) but since then the council has spent more and more money on redesigning the junction over and over again. The question remains, and to Earl's point about the cars going 4 years ago and the fact every works has been just to tweak the design - you have to ask why? Can anyone pinpoint what has changed to warrant the £1.5m of tax-payers money - it seems to me all they have done is increase the risk to pedestrians, slowed down emergency service access and removed parking which is of detrimental impact to the shops. Oh and put in really expensive and environmentally unfriendly paving and added a couple of new benches and new traffic lights.

Earl, what are your thoughts on the council shipping those lovely pavement tiles from India (rather than Yorkshire) to use to adorn your beloved square...any concerns that this will have had an necessarily negative impact on the environment? Is that not a little hypocritical? BTW I actually preferred the Square in its previous form before this huge amount of tax-payers money was wasted on it - it now looks like a huge bright concrete landing pad and I am not sure the area looks any nicer for it. It all feels a bit Milton Keynes and I think is out of character with the rest of the Village.

Earl, I think you need to spend more time reading what people actually post as you seem to constantly misinterpret/fail to grasp the message. I am wondering if you are starting to do it deliberately so you can pick a fight or whether you really don't understand. But if you had taken the time to actually read what I had said instead of doing your usual knee-jerk reaction then perhaps you would have understood it. I have explained it more than enough times to you that, given the overall number of journeys taken within an area then it is not a regular occurrence but you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge what I ACTUALLY said and instead try to accuse me of minimising it. Not for the first time, a complete untruth. Clearly....you can't argue with an....active travel lobbyist....;-)