'depending on who you speak to, this change is either a practical step to get more homes or the council sacrificing the needs of its citizens to benefit private companies.
the council have asked developers to build 35% affordable homes in all their builds since at least 2001. but recently they haven't delivered on that target... on average, over the last five years, they've only managed to deliver 15%.'
- tom howlett, ITV central news 14th october 2024, housing campaigners outraged as birmingham city council plan to slash affordable housing targets.
this is the ongoing problem. the housing associations (who would have bought these properties) are financially knackered as a result of the government lowering their rent levels by fiat in order to reduce the housing benefit bill. this means, in the builder's story, that they cannot afford to buy the s.106 flats that the builders would be building and without the sale of those flats being agreed the developments cannot get permission to go ahead. the s106 flats are in any event usually a nice little earner for the construction industry but obviously nobody makes as much money on them as commercial developments.
the construction industry will be busy but at the end of it the poor will still be homeless, stuck in temporary accommodation and costing local council (and thus local council tax payers) a fortune.
such are the benefits of socialism.
meanwhile the tory party is still in disarray.
to keep the rabid tory party members happy badenoch and jenrick must promise more reform type policies and to keep the one nation tories out of the shadow cabinet. the one nation tories have replied that if there are no shadow cabinet jobs they'll be leaving for more lucrative work elsewhere and there may be some by-elections (thank you and goodnight).
more kerfuffle in the new year then.
yesterday a somewhat ungenerous article in the LRB on soviet era dissidents - illustrated with a photo of sinyavsky and yuli daniel in the dock at their trial in 1965.it would go well with masha gessen's dead again: the russian intelligensia after communism.
given sinyavsky's enthusiasm for the letters of a.k. tolstoi horsemouth thought he might give them a read. however he can't seem to find them anywhere.
horsemouth isn't convinced that sinyavsky is not in fact on about leo tolstoy. anyway.
he did find out that a.k. tolstoi had written a novel about the vordulak in french (la famille du vourdalak. fragment inedit des memoires d'un inconnu). this was the basis for "I wurdulak", one of the three parts of mario bava's 1963 film black sabbath, featuring boris karloff.
ok that was an entirely written yesterday blogpost. horsemouth is waiting for the rain to lighten up before going and feeding the chickens.
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