Continuation of AR housing thread

[TheNuthatch]

Continuation of the Angela from housing thread. For those who want to moan about the government and share thoughts and articles.

Thanks for the link. Its stark isn't it! You should see how bad some army housing is. I hope they spend a chunk of it on personnel, its much needed.

Yeah, it's shameful. @TheNuthatch I totally agree.

@EasternStandard how dare you expect that a poster who you've never seen or heard of before support labour and you know, hang about on a board talking about your opinions, especially when they accurately portray this so far completely incompetent government.

At least the standing charges are being lowered from April. Plus the forecast is for the price cap to drop in Q3. So that's something.

I had a quick look on the Cornwall insights page and saw that they are currently forecasting a dip in July but if you read the spiel that goes with it, they don't really have much confidence about it because things are so volatile at the moment.

We have next to no gas storage so we are completely at the mercy of the market fluctuations.

This! 💯
Wholesale gas was recently down 22%.
I remember watching the gas storage tanks go up and down as a kid. Now they just sit empty.

Lammy for the Guardian just two weeks ago, criticising the previous government on foreign aid and the perils of reducing it.
Stephen Flynn brought this up in the house today. Lammy is a liability to labour.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/07/trumps-international-aid-cuts-usaid-china-lammy

Maybe Lammy could rein in his restaurant splurges totalling more than half a million since July and put that towards foreign aid?

While I agree we need to spend a lot more on the military I don’t think cutting Foreign Aid would be the way to do it.

For me they are two sides of the same coin. Foreign Aid buys influence. Sometimes it’s easier to buy something, rather than fight for it.

But of course with the government not being able to balance the books it’s an understandable option.

Charity begins at home , we have enough to sort out in this country that should be our focus
Increase in defence spending is all Jam tomorrow
Trump has certainly forced a few peoples hand , not always in a good way

How is spending on defence, jam tomorrow? You'd think ensuring the security of the country would be the first job of the state, surely?

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat I agree to an extent but I think it depends on the community? It feels like much of the world where aid goes doesn't appreciate the country sending it.

Don’t be fooled by the Aid bit. We get something, or even a lot out of it.

It’s more of investment, but of course we can’t call it that.

Then it should be used more wisely!

But it has place in the arsenal of diplomacy.

Yes, they were. And Reform is the joke/nightmare we haven’t had, and hopefully, never will 🙄. But, Labour are a huge disappointment 🤷‍♀️🙄

Yes, building a strategy for growth and then knee capping business and guaranteeing job losses is madness.

Or do you think that she'll manifest growth by repeating 'further and faster' again and again, like a mantra?

It’s Jam tomorrow as it doesn’t happen until 2027

Before then would be more useful I agree

@Upstartled it makes me think they'll get exercise bikes and start pedalling for growth

Trump seems to be making things / people act all we ever hear is in 2027 /8/9 blah blah we will aim to get here etc
when they don’t they all look at their feet and explain why they didn’t achieve it
I am looking forward to Angela Rayners reasons / excuses why she didn’t hit her 1.5m homes in less than 5 years

So disappointing that Starmer is increasing the defence budget at the expense of foreign aid. Awful decision.

Starmer's press conference was interesting. Questions from journalists were all along the lines of:

Is the UK's foreign policy now being dictated by Trump?
Is Labour copying Reform's manifesto pledge to increase defense spending, and paying for it by cutting foreign aid?

Strange to hear those questions being asked of a Labour PM. Is Starmer now Reform lite?

@TheNuthatch I missed all that, interesting

Sorry BillysBoy, I thought you meant that the defence budget was an extravagance. Yeah, we should never have allowed our defence budget to be so eroded.

I'm not sure where people who object to foreign aid cuts would rather the money was found? Further taxation which would stymie growth further or further cuts and austerity?

I agree with other pps re foreign aid. I think it does go hand in glove with defence, as long as it is spent wisely!
I would have preferred the money to be taken from some of the net zero funding.

Not sure on foreign aid so far, I need to hear more. Some good insight on Times radio last night

Listening rn we should scrap Chagos deal and not spend on that

Plus they talked about AI issue

That's the thing with Labour they get round to
attacking every group because they're shrinking growth

Now they need to sell out the creative industry to get big AI companies