Samuel Watling @watling_samuel Twitter profile

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Samuel Watling

3 months

🚨 NEW @WorksInProgMag ARTICLE🚨 Britain had its largest official rate of real house price growth in its history from October 1971 to July 1973. This was then followed by a house price crash and a government bailout. This is the story.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 months

Counterpoint: I remember seeing this as a teenager.

Sam Freedman

@Samfr

2 months

Have to say when Cameron became PM of a majority govt in 2015 on 36.9% of the vote I don't remember quite so much concern about vote shares.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

8 months

Wow, the period from 1929 to 1933 where the purchasing power of the dollar increased must have been amazing.

Spike Cohen

@RealSpikeCohen

8 months

On this day 110 years ago, the Federal Reserve was created. Since then, the US Dollar has lost more than 97% of its value. Put another way, the US government and Federal Reserve have stolen 97% of your wealth, before you pay a penny in taxes. It is long past time to end the

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

11 months

Given the cancellation of High Speed 2, I suggest we instead try to end the north-south (London) divide once and for all by building Crossrail 2 instead.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

5 months

Yeah, I'd like a 20% cut in my rent actually, that sounds great.

Tom Gann

@Tom_Gann

5 months

Wow if 1.3 million homes are immediately (!) built, rent on a London flat in a not very prestigious area might decline from £1800 a month to £1500 if we're very lucky? Problem solved.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

9 months

British citizens when they earn above £38,700

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Wow, they turned 2021 era @IslingtonChap into a research paper.

josh ryan-collins

@jryancollins

2 years

Not only will building 300,000 new houses a year make little difference to housing affordablity, it will also completely blow out the UK's 2050 net-zero carbon budget. Our new academic paper out today covered by @guardian

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

30 days

Nick Timothy: "We need to produce things" Nick Timothy when someone wants to produce something near him:

Nick Timothy MP

@NJ_Timothy

30 days

Delighted to have made my maiden speech, in which I raised the wonders and challenges of life in West Suffolk. I argued we need to change our economic model, so as a country we reindustrialise, investing more, manufacturing more, allowing us to narrow the trade deficit.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Never stops being relevant

Andrew Fisher

@FisherAndrew79

2 years

Lisa Nandy announces Labour's mantra will be "council housing, council housing, council housing" and adds "housing isn't a market, it is a fundamental human right" #Lab22

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

9 months

@MariGO2thepolls Correct

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

4 months

You can and we found that the income from slavery and colonial trade was less than 3% of GDP until the 1850s and nearly all industrial investment came from domestic sources. You can argue British rule kept its colonies poor, but you can't say it originally made Britain rich.

Sam Freedman

@Samfr

4 months

I think I hate history culture wars the most. They're so ahistorical. The rise of stable institutions and what those institutions spent their time doing can't be neatly separated out like a maths problem.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

What's wrong with students having places to live? Are we meant to sleep in the uni library?

Aaron Bastani

@AaronBastani

1 year

One street in Newcastle is 94% student HMOs. 94%! Council officials admitted it had become unliveable for families. The complete absence of planning in Britain, for virtually everything, is creating an extraordinarily dysfunctional country.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

> He uses Britain as the example of "unlimited market rate construction"

Ben Miller

@benwritesthings

1 year

Really weird how YIMBYs say that allowing unlimited market rate construction will keep rents low and keep cities livable, and yet Manchester is overrun with unlimited market rate construction and rents are spiking and people are being forced out…

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Fun fact, between 1964 and 1975 Sweden implemebted a social housing programme which built at a per capita rate which, if implemented in Britain today, would result in more than 750,000 social homes being built a year.

Richard Burgon MP

@RichardBurgon

2 years

Do you know what a radical housing policy would actually be? A promise to build 100,000 council houses a year.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Two countries with the lowest post war building rates (Britain and Belgium) have the worst insulated homes.

George Eaton

@georgeeaton

2 years

A good day to remember that British homes are among the worst insulated in Europe.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

6 months

Well do I have some news for you about the UK planning system.

Robert Bork III

@BobbyBorkIII

6 months

It should be a criminal offense to build these.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

11 months

The state pension is "low" by European standards because in European countries their state pensions are also substitutes for private pensions in that they are explictly contributory with payment and the pension based on your salary. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Jonathan Portes

@jdportes

11 months

This is broadly correct. The quality of analysis/commentary on this is beyond abysmal.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

10 months

Chaminda Jayanetti

@cjayanetti

10 months

Labour's housebuilding policies will have to account for the fact that the industry is currently dominated by corporate cowboys throwing up luxury-priced shanties

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

This basically boils down to "building through deserts is politically easier than building through some of the most ferociously NIMBY territory in recorded human history"

Harry🔶️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍🌈

@hazr198

1 year

Just a reminder Spain has built over 10 high speed rail lines since 1992, most of them much longer than HS2. Yet in 13 years HS2 is still a mess and no where near being operational

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Since the end of the second world war housing in Britain has become increasingly expensive and scarce. However this was not always the case, in 1955 Britain had more homes per capita than the Western European average, including countries such as Switzerland.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

"We must build housing in as many other people's constituencies as possible" The axiom of British planning is forever undefeated.

Layla Moran 🔶🕊️

@LaylaMoran

2 years

Lib Dems have consistently argued for more housing to be built in the city to avoid exactly what we are seeing here. Jobs and houses should be built together in smaller localities. Not jobs in the centre of the county with other districts having to respond to that unmet need.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

20 days

Translation: "Im mad at tall buildings in London blocking my view. So, my department produced an algorithm that cuts my local council's housing target by 40% and redistributes to Cumbria instead. This is despite 7,000 Greenwich families being on the housing waiting list"

Matthew Pennycook MP

@mtpennycook

22 days

Worth a read in respect of the new housing numbers the government are proposing local authorities should plan for 👇🏻

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

9 months

This is not true. British housing production falls behind its European peers after 1955, driven entirely by a shortfall in private housebuilding. Equally social housing production peaked in 1952 and was in near continuous decline after 1968. Thatcher is not the watershed.

BBC Newsnight

@BBCNewsnight

9 months

‘We haven’t been building nearly enough homes for the past forty years’ Toby Lloyd, former housing adviser to Theresa May, tells #Newsnight that the housing target is meaningless.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

5 months

Your argument is "simple" because the "let's pass a law to stop the general price level going up" is the level of complexity of a five year old.

shawn vulliez

@wrong_shon

5 months

@Econ_Marshall It’s crazy how many comments you can get from them without a single substantive refutation

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Growth 45-73 wasn't *fine*, this was the period Britain fell behind Europe and had substantive currency crisis and chronic regional unemployment in a time where this was unheard of anywhere else.

Tom McTague

@TomMcTague

2 years

You can very easily flip this. It is central to Remainer thinking that Britain’s economic fortunes were transformed by joining Europe. But they weren’t. Growth 1945-73 was fine. It wasn’t fine 73-79. *Europe* wasn’t—and isn’t—the central problem or solution. That’s closer to home

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Because the housing stock is the oldest in europe because we built the least private housing per capita in the post war era of any non comminist european country.

Liam Halligan

@LiamHalligan

2 years

On the Money today: Why are UK houses so badly insulated? @InsulateLove @realVickyPryce @freddie_poser @PricedOutUK @russellquirk Plus we debate: Does the UK need a VAT cut? Money Talks: The search for the perfect electric bike @WAU_BIKE Join us @GBNEWS 1-2pm

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

3 months

Theres always an @IslingtonChap tweet.

Jacqueline Way

@Bot4Earth

3 months

@RosieP4 @BBCr4today There is also an entitlement culture. Too many people want a house or flat when they are young. Rather than rent a room in a house share, cheap digs, or caravan while saving for a deposit for renting house or buy house.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

In most of the South East and especially London the price of a house is several multiples of the cost of the labour and capital necessary to build it. These factors are not the constraint on housing production in this country.

John McTernan

@johnmcternan

1 year

It’s almost as if there isn’t an unlimited pool of capital and labour for construction.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

@dieworkwear Do I have some news for you about Irelands housing.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Good news, we've already got rid of growth.

Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

2 years

The obsession with GDP helps evade questions of distribution while promoting infinite expansion on a finite planet. Only in the warped reality of our current growth obsessed economic model is expansion without end seen as a virtue. In biology, it's called a cancer.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

This proposition is the first time I've seen a politician propose a housing target which is at the (lower end) of the range of what England actually needs to be building per year.

PoliticsHome

@politicshome

1 year

Labour MP wants party to commit to build 450,000 homes a year

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Its funny because after the election the poster is from the Labour party introduced the most restrictive planning system in British history and then lost the next election partly because they did not build enough housing.

Armand Domalewski

@ArmandDoma

1 year

Hell yeah!!!

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

7 months

"It's often said that the UK only built enough homes when councils built at scale". Are you sure?

The Housing Forum

@thehousingforum

7 months

It's often said that the UK only built enough homes when councils built at scale. So what's stopping them building today? We've been taking a look at the latest survey on council housbuilding. Out this week from @janicemorphet and @DrBenClifford @UCL_BSP

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Are you a young person in a commuter town? Would you like the opprutunity to move to a nearby city for work, study or to experience a new place? WRONG Instead the entire economy should be moulded to shackle you to the place you were born. This is progressive for some reason.

Lisa Nandy MP

@lisanandy

2 years

And on homes 🏡 The government has abandoned their target to build 300,000 houses a year Over one million families are waiting for a council house While people moving to London and other major cities to find work is driving up rents & house prices

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Reading about development and industrial policies in: a) East Asia b) Latin America c) Middle East d) Africa

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

3 months

They've missed a trick. You could actually halve housing needs by making one-half of the population work between 9am and 9pm and the other half working overnight between 9pm and 9am. Then two people only need one room!

Stefan Horn

@_StefanHorn

3 months

I've written a new piece for the @IIPP_UCL blog: Meeting housing needs within planetary boundaries requires opening the black box of housing "demand" 1/8

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

3 months

Going to the local democracy hub for a four hour meeting to beg to the local citizens assembly to not confiscate my broom cupboard in order to house 5 people.

Stefan Horn

@_StefanHorn

3 months

@AFraserUrq Alastair, a core argument is that "housing need" cannot be determined by politicians/specialists. The bedroom standard is one starting point for discussion. Ultimately this has to be decided by the public, e.g. in a citizens assembly (like climate assemblies).

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

@BernoulliDefect "Britain pulled ahead because it built a lot of houses and declined when other countries built more houses than it"

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Entirely agree. Government should make all infrastructure investments and R&D conditional on housebuilding. Makes no economic sense to prioritse projects where the majority of value created goes into inflating house prices and enriching landlords.

Tom Forth

@thomasforth

2 years

It was a poor economic decision by the UK government and the Treasury to spend over £6bn upgrading Thameslink to give St. Alban's world class infrastructure. The project ended with a benefit to cost ratio of 1.2, well below investments in the North's cities that were cancelled.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

10 months

Simon Clarke

@Simon_ClarkeUK

10 months

The idea house prices aren’t linked intrinsically to availability is…interesting as a theory. @CentreforCities has estimated we are short of 4.3m homes.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Corbyn supporters when journalists asked a potential prime minister questions instead of clapping for 30 minutes every time he said inequality was bad.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

The sudden popularity of indentured servitude makes more sense when you realise that the modern conservative party sees anyone under fourty-five as a resource deposit to extract from on behalf their boomer voter base.

Sam Dumitriu

@Sam_Dumitriu

1 year

There’s something wrong when an MP seriously proposes forcing every young person to spend a year working for the council.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Shreya Nanda

@shreyagnanda

2 years

Excellent news - FPTP is anti-growth, anti-housing, anti-city, anti-progressive and anti-young people

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

5 months

One reason libertarian communists historically lost to Leninists is that given the choice most people would rather delegate decisions to GOSPLAN than have to spend every evening going to the local democracy hub to vote on the bi-annual toothpaste production quota.

Grace Blakeley

@graceblakeley

5 months

Vulture Capitalism, is all about how capitalism has undermined human freedom - and how grassroots experiments in democratic planning show the alternative. Here’s how the book starts:

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

6 months

Tell you what we could build

Tom

@TPGRoberts

6 months

Tell you what we could build

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Oldest housing stock in Europe my dude.

Inveterate Economist

@econ_inclined

1 year

Just read that 45% of rental stock in England is pre-1945 31% pre-1919?!!

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

@AntBreach @DefMon3 *sad trombone noises*

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

I would much rather emigrate than live in a country in which teenagers are conscripted into forced labour to do the worst jobs in British society that no-one else wants to do.

Aaron Bastani

@AaronBastani

1 year

@AnthonyTeasdale I’ve always supported a national service that does stuff around care work, climate change etc. Give young people an experience to meet others from totally different backgrounds, broaden horizons, learn skills (actual ones). Been attacked for saying it a few times 🤣

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Every report like this has as in its calculation "the majority of emissions comes from the existing housing stock which is the oldest in Europe and generally not near transit ". You are not going to solve this problem without building (environmentally friendly) new homes.

Sophus zu Ermgassen

@sophusticated

2 years

Really happy to see our work on the lack of a coherent climate and biodiversity strategy for England's housing sector covered in today's Guardian

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

The South East of England has a lower population density than most of Lancashire and Cheshire.

Charlotte Gill

@CharlotteCGill

2 years

How I’d solve housing: - Cap on immigration - can’t exceed number of homes in UK - Regional visas (the South East is overpopulated) - Planning reform obvs - Build up. A lot of us want to live in London not the Green Belt - More Elizabeth Lines - Rental reforms

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

9 months

I don't understand how two stairs would have prevented the Grenfell disaster given that the main problem was "the whole building was covered in flammable cladding and had no sprinkler system".

Peter Apps

@PeteApps

9 months

One of the many lessons from the Grenfell Inquiry was that its a mistake to use data from high probability, low consequence incidents to argue about what we will or won't need to prevent a low probability, high consequence catastrophe. Yet here we are again.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

If the "American troubles" had the same casualty rate as the Northern Irish troubles approximately 775000 people would die.

Special Puppy 🧦🐵

@SpecialPuppy1

2 years

A Second Civil War isn’t happening lmao. The worst case scenario is something like The Troubles

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

5 months

@SpeakMouthWords I rounded it to one significant figure.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

11 months

Given we define poverty as earning less than 60% of the median income why are people surprised that a demographic of people who choose not to be in work earn less than this?

Mac 🌹🔰🇺🇦🇵🇸

@GeorgismFan

11 months

Yes we do, because almost a quarter of pensioners are in poverty

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Also shameless plug for my own work. Real increases in house prices above wages begin in the 1960s, twenty years before the sale of council housing.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

I do think people should be allowed to have 3 children actually.

David Algonquin

@surplustakes

1 year

Only in Britain could you imply with a straight face that it is somehow profligate for new homes to have as many as 4 (four!) bedrooms

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Historian here. Common law was abolished by the 1974 Town and Country Planning Act which gave full power over everything in this country to a council of five homeowners in Surrey. However it will be restored if street votes passes.

David Henig 🇺🇦

@DavidHenigUK

1 year

Common law. The least understood part of the UK political and legal system, though we're terribly proud of it. And the most obstructive by far. Because Parliament can't just pass a Bill that forces building to happen. (Similarly at the heart of "health and safety culture").

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

11 months

@ZachElsbury Most of its underground, I'm sure the NIMBYs won't care.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

9 months

Finland also has 25% more housing per capita than Britain which also helps a great deal.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Calling for freedom of movement between a poor country with 1.3 billion people and a rich country that has been incapable of building > 200000 houses a year on non-derelict land since the 1930s would certainly be an interesting experiment on disglomeration effects.

Ben Ramanauskas

@BenRamanauskas

2 years

Calling for Freedom of Movement between the UK and India really did bring some of the worst people out of the woodwork. The way many people referred to Indian people is disgustingly racist. I'd love for the UK to open our borders to India! 👍🇬🇧🇮🇳

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

John Rentoul

@JohnRentoul

2 years

Final Q from Patrick, young person, who accuses old people of hogging money and houses while watching daytime TV

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

10 months

Particular urban areas in the US have similar problems with restrictive planning laws as occur in Britain, yes.

David Henig 🇺🇦

@DavidHenigUK

10 months

Housing supply and cost a major problem in the US apparently. The UK planning system is probably to blame...

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

4 months

@devarbol The brutal imperialists of San Marino, Lichenstein and Monaco (I dont think they even have armies)

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Turns out the Poles invented the British planning system before we did.

Luka Ivan Jukic

@lijukic

1 year

I’ll always respect Poland for coming up with the unhinged political mechanism in history

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

10 months

If you ever wondered why Britain and America have terrible infrastructure compared to Europe, my new Sunday Times article exploring our extortionate construction costs is out!

From HS2 to Wembley, why can’t Britain build on budget?

With just 134 miles of track between London and Birmingham now planned, the scope of HS2 is modest by international standards. Yet this short line is at least

www.thetimes.com

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Unfortunately she forgets that, unlike her, some houses need to be built as most people are not able to claim £90,718 in "parliamentary" expenses to subsidise their parents mortgage.

Maria_Miller

@MariaMillerUK

2 years

It’s good Ministers are thinking again but saddened @UKLabour don’t back a law change to let #Basingstoke slow down house building to what we need in our community rather than building for needs of the region. Back my campaign here:

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 months

Had a conversation with a green canvasser who told me we couldn't build more houses as there was a global sand shortage.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

3 months

Posting to policy pipeline but its Tim Chapman to CCHQ.

Tim Chapman

@IslingtonChap

3 months

Rishi has got to come out on the front foot on the Concerns to hobble Fromage. How about giving an independent regulator the right to decide the numbers? Kick this political football offside, once and for all.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

@thomasforth Tiramisu and spaghetti all carbonara are all post-war

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

6 months

And you cant build retirement homes because councils will not give them planning permission for the obvious reason that they will have to pay for their social care. There is no way to short-cut actually fixing local government finances and planning.

Merryn Somerset Webb

@MerrynSW

6 months

We worry a lot about housing in the UK (with good reason). But when we look at solutions we mostly think about getting young people into them. We'd be way better to start with getting oldies out of them - and into lovely build to rent retiremt homes.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

The CPRE was also a significant block on government policy in the 70s and 80s as well. In 1983, Thatcher tried to liberalise greenbelt restrictions, and the CPREs campaign successfully convinced over 100 of her backbench MPs to successfully oppose it.

Tom Harwood

@tomhfh

1 year

The barriers to growth and modernisation in the 1970s and 80s were the NUM and the TUC. In the 21st century it’s the RSPB and CPRE.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

@BeijingPalmer @J_Zane_Miller He still then had to basically be caught in the act for them to finally catch him.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

@TypeForVictory > Calls himself a Macmillanite > Hates Macmillans greatest achievement (the decoloniation of Africa)

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Sorry, quick question, do you think the attempting lynching of disabled children on trumped-up blasphemy charges is acceptable? I can't actually tell whether you agree with it or not from this meaningless statement.

Simon Lightwood MP

@simonlightwood

1 year

Statement on the recent incident at Kettlethorpe High School:

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 months

There is no economic justification for social housing construction. The constraint is the planning system, not the availability of capital. Even from a welfare perspective, giving people money is better than a lease that traps them in one place for the rest of their lives.

Tom Pollard

@PollardTom

2 months

Restoring then expanding our shamefully low stock of social homes must be front & centre in any strategy to address the housing crisis As @pollyn1 says in this @cjayanetti piece "without enough social housing, every other area in the system bottlenecks"

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Czechoslovakia had a higher Per Capita GDP level than Belgium before communism.

Nikolaj🥥🌴🐝🇺🇦

@nikicaga

2 years

Socialism "fails" because it has so far only governed countries already poorer than dirt. Some successfully, some meh, some terribly I'd love to see socialism in a previously rich country, even just from a curiosity standpoint

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Daily reminder that the entirety of the necessary tax take could be raised by ending the exemption for primary residences from capital gains tax at near-zero long term economic cost.

BBC News (UK)

@BBCNews

2 years

Treasury warns of tax rises to fill financial hole

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

8 months

I am a housing expert and I think planning reform could fix the housing crisis and I do not think more government funding is required. #notinmyname

Vicky Spratt

@Victoria_Spratt

8 months

Housing Secretary Michael Gove knows planning is part of the housing crisis puzzle. Over the last year, MPs in his own party have expressed concern about his attempts to change the planning system, do the reforms he has announced go far enough? @theipaper

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

23 days

Overall this is + 12k homes where there is actually demand for housing and +46k for areas where there isn't. This is not good and needs to be changed immediately to shift targets from the north and midlands to the South and London.

Aubrey Allegretti

@breeallegretti

23 days

NEW: North East and North West England will see a 99% and 75% rise in housebuilding targets, respectively. London is the only region to see its target drowngaded.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

3 years

I cannot believe that Enoch Powell of all people prophecised the concept of "cheems mindset"

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

@DavidHenigUK @lmrwanda @tc1415 As the pieces author I would disagree. The intention was to say the central issue was the planning system gave the incentives and power to constrain housing supply. I then say planning reform is essential but politically difficult and suggested potentienal ways to bypass this.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

"Economies of scale should be forcibly mandated for childcare above all else, except when the number is above four, then it should be illegal." Absolutely marvelous levels of centrism here.

Sam Freedman

@Samfr

2 years

@s8mb Because it's a lot cheaper for one person to look after several children than each parent to look after their own and not work. Plus the long term impact on (nearly always) women's career prospects which has a big effect on GDP.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 month

"The victorians couldn't provide adequate infrastructure as the urban population increased by a factor of twenty, so we need to keep legislation introduced one hundred years later to prohibit housebuilding for completely unrelated reasons"

Joe Penny

@Penny_Dropping

1 month

Ah yes, the Victorian era when famously people were housed well and in no way did deregulation lead to terrible slums that needed state intervention to address

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

Absolutely not. Despite having an overall benefit to society, it imposes a minor aesthetic cost on me. Therefore it should be built, but near other people such as you, not me.

CPRE The countryside charity

@CPRE

1 year

✍️ PETITION: Call on the government to unleash the potential of rooftop solar. ⚡ This will help: 👉 Cut carbon emissions 👉 Spare more land for farming and nature 👉 Slash energy bills Join our call for a #RooftopRevolution . Add your name 👇

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

8 months

Such an incredible indictment of the ultimate failure of planning and housebuilding policy in the 1960s that we were still using prefabs more than 18 years after the war had ended.

Rob Baker

@robnitm

8 months

A view of prefab houses from the London Park Hotel, Elephant and Castle, 1973

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 month

You don't read six to eight books fully in a week, that's not possible. You read parts (probably 20 to 60 pages depending on how useful it is).

James 🚄

@TypeForVictory

1 month

Complaints about reading one book a week as "too much" for undergrads blows my mind. I read 6-8 books, maybe a dozen journal articles, and wrote c.4000 words of essays every week, and I wasn't even trying for a First. If you're doing that little, join a book club. Far cheaper.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

Woah woah woah, i think that needs a full embodied carbon assessment. Insulating every house in Britain with XPS insulation would go someway to blowing our net zero budget.

XR Cambridge

@xr_cambridge

2 years

Install a heat pump, an induction stove and solar panels in/on every house and insulate every house and do it for free. Don't make it a consumer choice. Just do it.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

3 years

Here's the actual graph which I made. As you can see private sector house building is not in any way at 'pretty high levels' by historical standards. Blue is private housebuilding, Red is local authority/Housing associations housebuilding.

Duncan Weldon

@DuncanWeldon

3 years

I think this probably the best chart on English & Welsh house building. Because it demonstrates that private sector house building is actually at pretty high levels. The difference with the post war years is that local authorities aren’t adding anywhere near as much stock.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

No, discuss this instead.

George Eaton

@georgeeaton

2 years

Rather than yet another Netflix/avocados debate, how about discussing this graph?

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

@sam_d_1995 Its the "sir doge of the..." that really makes this.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

6 months

Dont forget the 1930s! (and also somewhat depressingly the Edwardian era).

CoKeynesian

@CoKeynesian

6 months

The UK really lives on the stuff it built in the '60s and '70s. So much of its civic infrastructure - schools, hospitals, water reservoirs, etc - comes from that era.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

5 months

This was unironically the general consensus on the British housing market until like 10 years ago.

Pontus

@Pontus4Pope

5 months

It's a shame more people don't understand Greedonomics.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

@BenRamanauskas Out of interest what do you think is the optimal policy assuming we are unable to do this?

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

10 months

@MatthewJDalby Because that actually involves making it easy to build something.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

"And it just so happens that the public interest dictates that building should happen everywhere except where I live"

Kristian Niemietz

@K_Niemietz

1 year

"Like all law, planning law [...] operates in the public interest." -I sometimes wish I could share the Upper Normie Left's naïve faith in the state.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

From 1955-1979 I believe the Netherlands had the highest public house building rates of any country in history.

Jim Gleeson

@geographyjim

1 year

Went to Amsterdam and visited Het Schip, a social housing estate built in the Amsterdam School style which now has a built-in museum and does guided tours. Recommended!

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

11 months

@kevinf567 Connects northern line stations to the south west london rail network.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

@habibi_uk @WestYorksPolice I believe this counts as a "non crime hate incident" as well. Will you be investigating?

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

1 year

A clear and obvious case of disability discrimination which should be taken to the courts

Adrian Hilton

@Adrian_Hilton

1 year

A @WestYorksPolice officer is present when Cllr @AkefAkbar tells those gathered that the “highly autistic” 14-year-old boy has “rightly so been expelled” (for scuffing the Quran). There is no police action against (or expulsion of) pupils who issued death threats. Astonishing.

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Samuel Watling

@watling_samuel

2 years

I mean its always been a political choice to slgenerously subsidise the unemployment of able bodied over 65s. Its not an iron law of demographics that this "has" to occur.

Iron Economist

@IronEconomist

2 years

A lot of people are just in outright denial about what our ageing population means for public spending. We are going to have to spend a lot more just to stand still - look at these numbers and realise the state pension and NHS bills need to increase 2% a year just to stand still.

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