Guardian: £180m cut from regeneration plans for Tony Blair's flagship housing project
Oh noes! A comparatively trivial sounding £180m denied to what is undoubtedly a worthy project, redeveloping a deprived and run-down housing estate. But read on, and:
"The £180m would have directly financed the construction of just 350 of the eventual 4,200 new homes replacing the Aylesbury's brutalist concrete towers and walkways."
Oh right, so just the £514,286 per new home then. I mean, I know they're nice new eco homes and everything, but seriously, WHAT THE FUCKETY FUCK!!
The Guardian seem to be affronted that the government has pulled the plug on what would have been, by any sensible standard, an obscene waste of the taxpayer's money. Even at the height of the property boom in 2007 a nice 2-bed newbuild flat in South East London could be bought, brand new from the developer, for under £300k. That figure includes the developer's profit margin (presumably quite inflated in 2007), and the cost of acquiring the land to build on, also not cheap during the boom. But one would assume that Lambeth council already own the the land the new flats were to be built on.
Now as a member of www.housepricecrash.co.uk (from where I got the link to the Guardian story), I'm of the opinion that £300k for a two bed flat is a quite ludicrous price. But it's a fucksight more sensible than £514k. A fair build cost for a decent flat on land you already own would be nearer £100k IMO. No wonder we're running a record deficit if our elected officials thought that paying five times over the odds for a building was anything other than sheer insanity.
Jesus.
Monday 27 December 2010
Good work, Mr Peston
Angry Liberal- always first with a sensible reaction to the hot news stories of the day. Yes, this was news six days ago, but seeing as I haven't updated this blog in six months, that's not bad going by my standards.
So anyway. It transpires that the Daily Telegraph quite sensibly chose not to publish a few of the comments Vince Cable made to their undercover reporters- specifically those pertaining to News Corp's attempt to buy a majority share- or full ownership- of BskyB.
Blog post here.
A 'whistleblower' then leaked the full transcript to Robert Peston, who went public with it on his BBC blog.
On the one hand, you've got to admire Peston's journalistic integrity and devotion to exposing the truth.
On the other hand, what a fucking stupid cunt he is. At the end of his blog, Peston comments:
"Some will notice that when it comes to opposition to Mr Murdoch’s proposed takeover of Sky, there is a convergence of the Telegraph’s views and Mr Cable’s views."
Yes....with the views of everyone else in the country with a functioning brain. Murdoch is an implacable opponent of the BBC, he's a famous tax avoider (for clarification, that doesn't mean evader, just in case m'learned friends are reading), he's no fan of 'consolidation' in the media sector himself, apparently, and he's generally a nasty, pernicious old bastard.
The Lib Dems have essentially achieved fuck all in this coalition; now the one good thing they might have managed has probably been scuppered by a stupid-voiced twat riding on someone else's journalistic efforts and essentially stealing their story.
And while I'm on a Peston slagging tip, a friend once gave me 'Brown's Britain' and insisted I read it. Possibly the most recursive and tedious tome it has ever been my misfortune to have to struggle through.
So anyway. It transpires that the Daily Telegraph quite sensibly chose not to publish a few of the comments Vince Cable made to their undercover reporters- specifically those pertaining to News Corp's attempt to buy a majority share- or full ownership- of BskyB.
Blog post here.
A 'whistleblower' then leaked the full transcript to Robert Peston, who went public with it on his BBC blog.
On the one hand, you've got to admire Peston's journalistic integrity and devotion to exposing the truth.
On the other hand, what a fucking stupid cunt he is. At the end of his blog, Peston comments:
"Some will notice that when it comes to opposition to Mr Murdoch’s proposed takeover of Sky, there is a convergence of the Telegraph’s views and Mr Cable’s views."
Yes....with the views of everyone else in the country with a functioning brain. Murdoch is an implacable opponent of the BBC, he's a famous tax avoider (for clarification, that doesn't mean evader, just in case m'learned friends are reading), he's no fan of 'consolidation' in the media sector himself, apparently, and he's generally a nasty, pernicious old bastard.
The Lib Dems have essentially achieved fuck all in this coalition; now the one good thing they might have managed has probably been scuppered by a stupid-voiced twat riding on someone else's journalistic efforts and essentially stealing their story.
And while I'm on a Peston slagging tip, a friend once gave me 'Brown's Britain' and insisted I read it. Possibly the most recursive and tedious tome it has ever been my misfortune to have to struggle through.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)