Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

[Silly McSilly Face]

China are pretty determined to succeed and are starting to take over Western companies now in innovation and design. Only a matter of time.

It's not actually about not having the ability to build cars with those handling characteristics its about market. Suspension and steering design is a balance between comfort and dynamics/handling. American and Chinese cars have softer suspension and lighter handling as you have long straight roads where you do not need to brake as much or steer tightly and accurately at speed and so they're designed to maximise comfort. Softer suspension allows more independent movement of the wheels from the chassis meaning that you're going to feel bumps and potholes less. However if you take a sharp corner hard the car is going to start shifting it's weight over and rolling to one side if it has softer suspension, likewise if you brake hard in a car with soft suspension the rear is going to lift up more.

So if you're planning to be bombing around on a twisty European B road, you want stiffer suspension and heavier steering. If you want to potter around on the school run, drive for 500 miles on a straight highway to the next state and make sure the groceries aren't thrown over the boot due to a few potholes then you want soft suspension.

Done a bricky diagram for illustration

 

[Robspur12]

There is far less scope to escape scrutiny at a local level because it covers the every day things that the general public care about like planning,social care, rubbish collections and local crime issues. I think Reform will find it tough Tbh.

I have yet to see how Reform intend to tackle things like the overspend on the transport of kids with Special Educational needs or the growing number of rough sleepers or burgeoning adult social care costs. Sacking DEI workers and stopping work from home are headline catchers but not a serious dive into solving the crises faced by many town halls.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

There is far less scope to escape scrutiny at a local level because it covers the every day things that the general public care about like planning,social care, rubbish collections and local crime issues. I think Reform will find it tough Tbh.

I have yet to see how Reform intend to tackle things like the overspend on the transport of kids with Special Educational needs or the growing number of rough sleepers or burgeoning adult social care costs. Sacking DEI workers and stopping work from home are headline catchers but not a serious dive into solving the crises faced by many town halls.

Farage was asked directly whether he was confident he had the right calibre of people to provide actual services to local people. His answer was a good one. He didn't claim he had them, the answer was "well we can hardly be worse than the previous lot?" And that's the thing. There's no mystical secret to the effective running of a council. You have x3 sources of revenue:
1) central govt funding
2) local taxation (council tax, business rates etc)
3) local revenue generation (parking charges, local facility fees like council swimming pools etc)
So you tot all that up and then you divide it up among the services you need to provide in order of priority and if you need more money, you either need to increase 2 and/or 3 or ask for more 1. OR you have to cut services or find efficiencies such as reducing staff, more innovation etc.

The fact that some major councils have effectively gone bankrupt is unacceptable. I'm sorry but there are good local authorities out there but by GHod has there been some utterly incompetent ones too....

 

[Robspur12]

Farage was asked directly whether he was confident he had the right calibre of people to provide actual services to local people. His answer was a good one. He didn't claim he had them, the answer was "well we can hardly be worse than the previous lot?" And that's the thing. There's no mystical secret to the effective running of a council. You have x3 sources of revenue:
1) central govt funding
2) local taxation (council tax, business rates etc)
3) local revenue generation (parking charges, local facility fees like council swimming pools etc)
So you tot all that up and then you divide it up among the services you need to provide in order of priority and if you need more money, you either need to increase 2 and/or 3 or ask for more 1. OR you have to cut services or find efficiencies such as reducing staff, more innovation etc.

The fact that some major councils have effectively gone bankrupt is unacceptable. I'm sorry but there are good local authorities out there but by GHod has there been some utterly incompetent ones too....

True re good and bad ones but that distinction is becoming less and less. Even "good", well run authorities are struggling these days, irrespective of whether they are Labour, Tory or LD run. Reform will find that out for themselves soon enough.

If you think you can distill the interwoven complexity of local government service provision, finance and national statutory requirements in just those 3 points then with respect you have absolutely no idea. Local government is about protecting people's lives in their local communities. Things can change in an instant and completely blow your budget and plans out of the water. For example you cannot necessarily predict how many homeless you are going to have in your district but if more turn up than you budgeted for, the law says you still have to find accommodation for them. And we are not exactly blessed with housing stock as it is. So the LAs become reliant on private landlords who have them over a barrel. Same for social care, special educational needs. These are things you cannot control but must, by law, service. Hence overspends and cuts. Not DEI initiatives or working from home.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Why would he join in with something he is politically and ethically opposed to?

He 'joined in' by virtue of joining a committee. If you don't want to join in, don't join the committee. If you've decided to, you get on and serve to the best of your remit.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

True re good and bad ones but that distinction is becoming less and less. Even "good", well run authorities are struggling these days, irrespective of whether they are Labour, Tory or LD run. Reform will find that out for themselves soon enough.

If you think you can distill the interwoven complexity of local government service provision, finance and national statutory requirements in just those 3 points then with respect you have absolutely no idea. Local government is about protecting people's lives in their local communities. Things can change in an instant and completely blow your budget and plans out of the water. For example you cannot necessarily predict how many homeless you are going to have in your district but if more turn up than you budgeted for, the law says you still have to find accommodation for them. And we are not exactly blessed with housing stock as it is. So the LAs become reliant on private landlords who have them over a barrel. Same for social care, special educational needs. These are things you cannot control but must, by law, service. Hence overspends and cuts. Not DEI initiatives or working from home.

So as soon as you get something that "blows your budget out of the water" you deal with it. You raise council tax or charges and/or you go to government and ask for funding. You don't just go, "oh well, we will just bumble along running a budget deficit until we run into an irretrievable financial situation", which so many large (mainly labour) councils have done...like i say people over over complicate this stuff. It's pretty simple and easy to deal with, if you have competent staff, good governance structures and a willingness to make sometimes tough calls. A big weakness i see a lot in public and private sector governance is when problems are presented to boards and senior management with options papers providing clear routes forward and the response is....."can we commission a report" or they'll have endless meetings discussing it, kicking the can down the road and by the time things come to a head some of the options are no longer available. Weak decision making blights a lot of these councils, NHS trusts and actually some private sector companies that get into difficulties.

An example of this is the failure of Debenhams. The board were aware of a problem with pension provisioning, falling revenues across the highstreet retail industry and incressing energy and rental costs for years but kicked decisioning down the road to the point where the deficit between their liabilities, their ability to meet them and their good will from lenders to help them meet them had been exhausted. To be clear it was a combination of factors that started with a reliance on continued provision of bank credit to cover losses with the final moment of failure being a steep fall in revenue during Covid after years of mismanagement which meant they were now too risky a proposition for banks to lend the significant credit lines needed to keep them afloat.

Even then, at the last minute they were offered a path to salvation via an offer from Mike Ashley to buy the company and take on its liabilities, but they rejected this offer in favour of a pig headed attempt to claw out from the abyss, thus dooming over 12,000 UK staff to redundancy.....

 

[Grays_1890]

True re good and bad ones but that distinction is becoming less and less. Even "good", well run authorities are struggling these days, irrespective of whether they are Labour, Tory or LD run. Reform will find that out for themselves soon enough.

If you think you can distill the interwoven complexity of local government service provision, finance and national statutory requirements in just those 3 points then with respect you have absolutely no idea. Local government is about protecting people's lives in their local communities. Things can change in an instant and completely blow your budget and plans out of the water. For example you cannot necessarily predict how many homeless you are going to have in your district but if more turn up than you budgeted for, the law says you still have to find accommodation for them. And we are not exactly blessed with housing stock as it is. So the LAs become reliant on private landlords who have them over a barrel. Same for social care, special educational needs. These are things you cannot control but must, by law, service. Hence overspends and cuts. Not DEI initiatives or working from home.

Yep, it's complex to navigate. But I'm sure Luke Campbell the ex boxer can save Hull

 

[Grays_1890]

I do agree, but Germany has had that right wing lunatic fringe for a while.

We’ve not had it here since Mosley and his black shirts 80 odd years ago.

That they are now winning seats and councils is scary.

Lets see whats delivered, UKIP lasted about 7 minutes in Thanet before the infighting caused them to implode, considering Lowe and Farage are at odds and many supporters are arguing about how Farage isn't racist enough you wonder how long this will last. Some on here would clearly let Farage sh1t in their gardens and they would thank them for fertiliser, we will at least now see how much political substance they have

 

[richie_spur]

I think the MG is pretty loose too.

I was considering buying the electric one for my wife but it was a horrible drive. The equivalents at Kia & Hyundai are much better, and that's the first time I've ever said that about them.

I had an MG SUV as a hire car late last year. Virtually brand new. The pleather interior stank and felt like 70s vinyl and the touch screen (which controlled everything) would randomly go blank for miles.

I asked the chap about it when he picked it up and he implied I was lucky it was working at all. Said they were cheap crap they bought for rentals.

As it was a heavy car it was also gutless (1.5l).

I much prefered driving the 1l Picanto we had.

 

[yiddo37]

Almost all politicians are self-serving counts.
All parties are divisive.
I'm working class and grew up with the belief that Labour represented my interests. As soon as 'New Labour' arrived I feel none of the parties represent the working class.

 

[scaramanga]

He 'joined in' by virtue of joining a committee. If you don't want to join in, don't join the committee. If you've decided to, you get on and serve to the best of your remit.

Or is it better to take a space on the committee and then render it less useful by leaving them down a member if what you want to do is take it apart?

 

[scaramanga]

True re good and bad ones but that distinction is becoming less and less. Even "good", well run authorities are struggling these days, irrespective of whether they are Labour, Tory or LD run. Reform will find that out for themselves soon enough.

If you think you can distill the interwoven complexity of local government service provision, finance and national statutory requirements in just those 3 points then with respect you have absolutely no idea. Local government is about protecting people's lives in their local communities. Things can change in an instant and completely blow your budget and plans out of the water. For example you cannot necessarily predict how many homeless you are going to have in your district but if more turn up than you budgeted for, the law says you still have to find accommodation for them. And we are not exactly blessed with housing stock as it is. So the LAs become reliant on private landlords who have them over a barrel. Same for social care, special educational needs. These are things you cannot control but must, by law, service. Hence overspends and cuts. Not DEI initiatives or working from home.

What many (most?) councils forget is that that are able to compete with one another.

Councils are locked into the outdated (by about half a century) idea that increased taxes make for increased revenue. If they charge lower rates on businesses and homes, they will attract more of both. If they make city centres easier and better to shop in by making parking cheaper and more available, they attract shoppers. If they make the roads bigger and better they will have more commuters and spenders.

The govt did their best to scupper a lot of this by banning new selective schools, which was traditionally one of the best ways to increase revenue in an area, but relaxing planning for independent ones can cover some of that.

 

[Robspur12]

What many (most?) councils forget is that that are able to compete with one another.

Councils are locked into the outdated (by about half a century) idea that increased taxes make for increased revenue. If they charge lower rates on businesses and homes, they will attract more of both. If they make city centres easier and better to shop in by making parking cheaper and more available, they attract shoppers. If they make the roads bigger and better they will have more commuters and spenders.

The govt did their best to scupper a lot of this by banning new selective schools, which was traditionally one of the best ways to increase revenue in an area, but relaxing planning for independent ones can cover some of that.

I can assure you councils have tried many of things including business rates exemptions and freezes but they are limited because they need their money.parking revenue is essential to pay for services. They want town centres to thrive. Unfortunately their services are tied in to statutory responsibilities; they've seen a 40% drop in government funding while demand for services has risen. I think Osborne did not really understand this when he devised their funding model.And Labour haven't really had a chance to address it. Almost all councils have had to borrow to fund the shortfall in income . Others borrowed to "invest" in stupid schemes, and are now heavily indebted. It's a brick show but as much Central Government's fault as anything.

Anyway let's see what answers Reform have now they have to put their money where their mouth is.

 

[Robspur12]

You raise council tax or charges and/or you go to government and ask for funding. You don't just go, "oh well, we will just bumble along running a budget deficit until we run into an irretrievable financial situation", which so many large (mainly labour) councils have done...like i say people over over complicate this stuff.

Haha. You can't raise council tax mid year. Nor can you raise council tax beyond a statutory cap. As for going to Government for more finance you think they don't do that? And mainly Labour ? that's nonsense too. Thurrock, and Woking, Northampton and LB Havering are all Tory run councils who are or have been in big financial difficulties. Most of the Surrey ones are too and they are among the most heavily indebted ones in the country.

It's pretty simple and easy to deal with, if you have competent staff, good governance structures and a willingness to make sometimes tough calls.

It really isn't.

Weak decision making blights a lot of these councils, NHS trusts and actually some private sector companies that get into difficulties.

There certainly is some of that but it's mainly on those who think they can be entrepreneurial with other people's money. But also they are not good at negotiating public private contracts. Invariably when public sector meets private sector, the former comes off with the worse deal.