1

shootin' the shit / Re: Climbers recovering from covid

« Last post by seankenny on Today at 12:09:43 am »

Perhaps worth letting everyone know the score as some people may have underlying health conditions that you’re unaware of. Outside is a good idea, I’d strongly recommend avoiding hugging and close contact but appreciate that is crap advice for a funeral.

For yourself, yes do take it easy for a bit afterwards. The chances of it turning into the extended version are about one in ten, maybe a little less, so not negligible and worth avoiding.

Hope the day goes as well as can be expected. Get well soon!

2

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by Fiend on Yesterday at 09:34:48 pm »

Beastly. Good write-up too.

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shootin' the shit / Re: Climbers recovering from covid

« Last post by spidermonkey09 on Yesterday at 09:09:26 pm »

Difficult situation James, sorry to hear that. If it were me, I think I'd try to mix with family outside as much as possible and obviously let them know you're currently testing positive, but given the importance of the day there's only so much you can do. It's another thing to think about when you already have a lot on. Hope you feel better soon and you give your dad a good send off.

4

shootin' the shit / Re: UK General Election 2024

« Last post by mrjonathanr on Yesterday at 07:26:27 pm »

Hi Nemo, I’m on board with the need for planning reform. But this is where it gets messy as data take time to find, but…

I think concentrated wealth is a highly significant driver of asset price inflation. As for the tradesman made good as landlord, I’m inclined to think that’s a very minor part if the pie. Assets aren’t getting snapped up by ordinary folk, especially as it’s difficult to maintain a profitable portfolio. Although there may be the odd unicorn on ukb..

Honestly, in a generation, I think home ownership for ordinary people will be a thing of the past, replaced by rental contracts known as ‘50 year mortgages’.

5

shootin' the shit / Re: UK General Election 2024

« Last post by ToxicBilberry on Yesterday at 07:23:28 pm »

Slightly bigger aid budget. Maybe even have a dedicated  international development department again. So yeah, helping very poor people. I’m sure you’ll find a way to hate it.

Not hating on it. Starmer is a puppet of the dark Lord Blair who has a pretty good record of manufacturing humanitarian crisis.

Edit : Should read Dark Lord Sir Tone Blair

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shootin' the shit / Re: UK General Election 2024

« Last post by seankenny on Yesterday at 07:16:03 pm »

Slightly bigger aid budget. Maybe even have a dedicated  international development department again. So yeah, helping very poor people. I’m sure you’ll find a way to hate it.

7

shootin' the shit / Re: UK General Election 2024

« Last post by ToxicBilberry on Yesterday at 07:07:58 pm »

I'm enjoying reading Labours plans to manage mass migration, including the euphemistic - 'tackling humanitarian crisis at source', I wonder what this means? 

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: Changing the BMC

« Last post by shark on Yesterday at 06:56:37 pm »

Annual report and Accounts now out. No sign of the detailed Auditors Report promised by the CEO,

First glance at the format is that little has changed and therefore no detailed breakdown of allocation of expenditure by GB Climbing or how grant income was allocated. So same old, same old ie clear as mud.

Plenty of excuses in the chair's report if you are interested.

Headline figure only of £950k by the BMC to support GBClimbing (ie above and beyond grant and other income) so little doubt of the scale of support there on £4.85m overall expenditure. No indication whether that includes the cited £200k shared costs in the rebuttal letter for example.

As for the £625k loss the annual report says this:
The BMC made a larger than expected loss of £625k in 2023. The main reasons for these losses are grouped as follows:
1. Reconciliation of grants relating to GB Climbing and poor controls of budgets resulting in additional cost to the BMC. £361,284
2. Inaccurate accounting of VAT resulting in additional cost to the BMC.£61,420
3. Profit reconciliation across several areas including bad debtors and fees for services owed. £62,037
4. Loss of insurance income in July 2023. £41,627
5. The costs of restructuring, redundancies, and staff departures due to not tracking ambitious growth targets. £102,816

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-annual-general-meeting

9

shootin' the shit / Re: UK General Election 2024

« Last post by stone on Yesterday at 06:14:05 pm »

I thought the history of the buy-to-let mortgage bubble was fascinating. John Major kicked it off in 1996 eliminating restrictions on buy-to-let mortgages. That set off crazy house price inflation but of course by then Blair was in power and made out it was Blairite economic genius that was making everyone rich.

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shootin' the shit / Re: UK General Election 2024

« Last post by Nemo on Yesterday at 06:00:33 pm »

@MrJonathanR - completely agree about fixing social care, although it's not a cheap thing to do, so will involve tough choices elsewhere.
And agree with at least some of the other points - I'm generally in favour of whatever will work when it comes to sorting out housing.  But +1 to everything SpiderMonkey said - to me, any solution very definitely requires radical planning reform. 

And whilst it's certainly a part of the problem, and whilst I agree with doing something about it, I don't agree that the super rich are the biggest problem in terms of housing (although in some specific places you're certainly right). 
A bigger problem to me at least is that large swathes of people from relatively modest backgrounds from the late 90s onwards were in a position if they owned one home, to get a buy to let mortgage and buy another one.  And another one.  And another one.  So that the ex electrician nearby owns over 50 houses and retired when he was 35.  And the little old lady nearby retired when she was 40 and rents out 20 houses.  And yet the neighbours (who rent) kid will never have a chance of owning one.  You can't blame that on foreign billionaires. 

Noone is critisizing those people for buying up large amounts of property.  It was the rational thing to do given government policy.  But government policy should have completely changed the incentives for doing that a very long time ago.  When swathes of the middle class for decades have been using the housing market as their pension pot, there's a problem.  So yes, as you say, completely changing the tax incentives around investing in property, short term rents (airbnb etc) all play a part. 

But there's also just a fundamental shortage of housing.  And what does get built is tiny, shite quality houses, crammed into the tiniest plot of land imaginable.  So fundamentally changing planning laws and building large amounts more housing, very definitely needs to be part of any solution.