mrjonno wrote:

A majority of 12. Not one Cameron can particularly trust either. 24% of the available vote. Certainly a 'win' but hardly a strong position.

Not 37% of the available vote. A majority of 12 is quite sufficient for say changing the electoral system so anyone who doesn't have a job loses their vote for example (a policy that would almost certainly have popular support)

ronmcd wrote:Although, with you being so certain, I can at least be confident in never believing any other opinions you share with us.

Beatsong wrote:It's almost like he's "never wrong".

chairman bill wrote:

Beatsong wrote:It's almost like he's "never wrong".

Have you ever seen them in the same room together?

mrjonno wrote:

A majority of 12. Not one Cameron can particularly trust either. 24% of the available vote. Certainly a 'win' but hardly a strong position.

Not 37% of the available vote. A majority of 12 is quite sufficient for say changing the electoral system so anyone who doesn't have a job loses their vote for example (a policy that would almost certainly have popular support)

Beatsong wrote:

ronmcd wrote:Although, with you being so certain, I can at least be confident in never believing any other opinions you share with us.

It's almost like he's "never wrong".

ED209 wrote:The topic of the tory watch thread is tory policy.

No wait! It's tory council candidates.

No wait! It's Beatsong. It has always been Beatsong. It's Beatsong all the way down

magine you awoke one morning to find David Cameron stood in your garden banging a For Sale sign into your flowerbed…Well, that morning has arrived.

The government’s new Infrastructure Bill removes control for decisions to sell or develop publicly owned land from the public sector. In short, before long, a private company will have the power to sell publicly owned land for Fracking, new nuclear, or whatever else it likes – and the public say in the development of its own land will be a thing of the past.

The Infrastructure Bill has somehow managed to slip through to its Second Reading in the House of Lords from 1830 Wednesday 18th June 2014, with almost zero news coverage – and I mean anywhere. I picked it up from Schnews and the keen politicos. So don’t feel bad for not having heard about it, feel bad for democracy.

The Bill contains a clause that will end local decision making over use of publicly owned land. As Schnews puts it, this ends the rights of Councils:

in granting or denying planning consent, cancels any rights of way or any need to ask the people of England and Wales if they mind losing their parks, playing fields, allotments, woodlands, public facilities or village greens to housing developers, fracking companies, road- or railway-builders. It’s the land grab to end all land grabs.

With much of the say over land development moving to the Land Registry, we come to the next issue. The government is selling off the Land Registry to private, profit making interests.

The government has also ordered local authorities to transfer up to 90% of brown field sites (previously developed sites that have become vacant, contaminated but could be reused) into the hands of the Homes and Communities Agency (the latest quango) where Eric Pickles (and his successors) and just two inspectors will control the planning decisions.

The Infrastructure Bill contains a clause which will allow ALL public land to be privatised. There’s no need to reference the Forestry Act 1967, the Countryside Rights of Way Act or any other protective law, because Schedule 3 of the Bill- states that “the property, rights and liabilities that may be transferred by a scheme include… property, rights and liabilities that would not otherwise be capable of being transferred or assigned.”

In plain English, this means all preceding regulations, legislation and other protections for this site are null and void – fill your boots.

If this Bill passes, we will have the private sector deciding the sale price, planning requirements and development plans for publicly owned land. The government is taking our land – our communally owned parks, rivers, beaches, moors, mountains and fields – handing the lot over to the control of one private company, and removing any democratic mandate for decision making whatsoever.

Campaigners and opposition peers fear that the bill could also licence the government to sell off any public land it chooses, while cancelling, without process or debate, public access and use. Clauses 21 and 22 allow it to transfer property from other public bodies to the Homes and Communities Agency and permanently to extinguish easements (rights of use), public rights of way, and the protections afforded to consecrated ground. The HCA can then sell this land to developers, free from public rights.The news site Schnews reveals that during the great battle over the coalition's attempt to sell off the public forest estate, which resulted in the government's first major U-turn, one of the campaigners received an anonymous call from a civil servant. "The forests are just the start," he warned. "They are absolutely determined to sell every scrap of public land – beaches, parks, the lot."

Strontium Dog wrote:I love that those articles are from June 2014. Clearly in the intervening 13 months, it's made an enormous impact upon all of our lives.

First published: 6 June 2014
Last updated: 30 January 2015 see all updates

Peter Brown wrote:There seems to be a contradiction between what the Tories make law and what happens after. Like Osborne puts a benefit cap of 25k and now in the papers we hear of a guy getting 50k in benefits, and that’s ignoring the rest of the media rants.

mrjonno wrote:... lack of housing and rent costs out of control

chairman bill wrote:

mrjonno wrote:... lack of housing and rent costs out of control

Hmm. Which government did away with rent controls, so causing a huge increase in the housing benefit bill, and then cut housing benefit because the cost was too high? Go on, guess.