Dad, analyst, occasional blogger, runs, lifts weights, gets angry at clouds.
Preston, England
Joined July 2008
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Hey @grok, which current UK political party leader received the most community notes for misinformation on their x posts in 2025?
James Lowery retweeted
Dear Labour
You literally don’t understand why construction companies aren’t building masses of houses! And why they won’t do what you tell them.
Let me help you.
▪️There aren’t enough builders, bricks, or cement. Businesses forecast years in advance for developments. They can’t ramp up in a year.
▪️Developers have cash flow and budgets, unlike the government they can’t print money and double in size in a year. And you just screwed the economy by raising taxes and minimum wage.
▪️From 2027, imported raw materials like steel and cement face a new carbon taxes of up to 24%. Gained can pretend he’s saving the planet) Developers have no idea what the hit will be. And so cannot build blind.
▪️If housing isn’t financially viable, builders won’t build. Labour is demanding cheap entry level homes. But developers make little profit on these, so little that only building these will mean they can’t pay the wage bill! So they have mixed price developments. Higher priced houses aren’t selling because the economy is wankered (technical term)
▪️The state of the economy means huge job insecurity, why would Developers risk over supplying a market that is stagnant?
▪️New house building and completions are down in many places because over supply will see a collapse in prices and developers would make a loss. It would be insane for a business to plan to make a loss.
▪️ net zero targets have left thousands of finished homes unable to be connected to the grid! Brilliant. Why would house builders risk building and not being able to sell because they can’t get electricity.
Had Labour had any business experience or economic knowledge they would know that councils have to heavily subsidise new developments … but they have no money!
Governments can’t force businesses to harm themselves. It’s an idiotic promise made because you don’t understand how profit works.
You’re welcome
When council tax was introduced in 1991, the average cost for Band D was £568 (~£1,134 in today's money). Last year, the band D average was £2,065.
That's 79% above inflation.
Also, the idea that we need to "revalue" properties when the bands are relative to the area is risible.
Who'd have thought that people would rather pay a tenner a month for a VPN rather than share their ID with a smut merchant when they want to chuck one over their thumb:
Since India is an importer of oil from Russia ($23.5 billion worth in 2023-4) and they're buying it at a discount because of sanctions, the UK is buying oil from Russia - albeit with India acting as middleman.
What the fck did @rachelreevesMP and @keir_starmer expect would happen when they spent the 3 months running up to the budget spreading doom and gloom and threatening punitive tax rises on business?
Chancellor will be rubbing her hands together at the thought of the increase in IHT and lower NHS costs when they start providing euthanasia for a stubbed toe.
The housing industry completed 160k(ish) new homes in 2033 and started 150k(ish), and they're working at close to capacity.
Doubling that number with current methods means doubling the production of building materials and the number of skilled workers. Not to mention the other people in the chain such as building inspectors, mortgage advisors, conveyancers and rental agents.
And before you get a spade in the ground, there's approval, utilities connections and road building which all take time and people.
Not only do you have all the housing, you need the community infrastructure that supports residents like schools, doctors surgeries and shops, which developers typically contribute to (and also require the same approval, staff, and materials).
It's unrealistic to achieve this target with current ways of working, so almost 100% certain it'll fail.
The only way this target is met is with fundamental change to what constitutes a "home".
Prefab using novel materials and extrusion printing are possible ways of moving outside the current supply chains, but they would also require massive new industry growth.
Starmer promises 1.5m new homes by 2028. “That’s hugely ambitious — I won’t pretend otherwise.” How’s that ‘hugely ambitious’ when 1m migrants arrive a year? Where’s the homes, schools and hospitals they’ll need alone? He’s ruling in cloud cuckoo land. thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
#bitcoin100k finally happened!
The total value is now around $2 trillion - same ballpark as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia.
It's also more than the GDP of 90% of countries!
This is completely nuts and absolutely horrific: public ass*ssinations should not be a thing in real life. #newyork
What's happening in South Korea is absolutely bonkers.
It seems like a massive leap to claim that the Norks are suddenly undermining the country.
So according to the US government something like 7 million people died and the global economy collapsed because a dangerous genetically engineered virus created through funding by the US escaped from a lab?
That sounds like the ravings of a madman.
