While the number of ‘net additional dwellings’ technically hit 'the highest point on record in 2019/20', these statistics only go back to the early 90s. Other metrics & housing experts suggest that recent house building is generally far lower than records set decades ago. #bbcqt
It’s also important to note that these figures don’t strictly relate to “house building”—as well as new build homes they also include conversions (such as turning a large house into multiple flats) & changes of use such as an old shop into a house or flats. #bbcqt
John Perry, policy advisor at the Chartered Institute of Housing, told Full Fact: “House building was much higher in the 1960s & 1970s than it is now.”
There is another set of stats used to measure the number of new homes in the UK, called “indicators of new supply”.
These are published by the government on a quarterly basis for England, and show both the number of new homes being started and the number of new homes being completed.
Calendar-year data on new homes started in England dates back to 1978.
Under the current Govt, the highest number of new homes started in a calendar year was in 2021 with 177,920.
But the record year according to this data set was 1978 with 226,680 homes started. The government’s 2021 record was also beaten in 1979, 1983, & 2007.
The government data on new homes completed in England goes back even further, to 1946.
These figures show that despite Tory MP Rachel Maclean's misleading claims on #bbcqt, more new homes were built in England each year from 1952 to 1980 than in any year since 2010.
The #ONS publishes figures on completions for the entire UK.
These also show that there were much higher levels of new houses being completed between the early 1950s to the 1980s than there have been under this current dysfunctional government.
The House of Commons Library has published data stretching even further back.
These figures show there were higher numbers of houses built in the UK between 1934 & 1940, between 1948 & 1981, & in 2007 than were built in any year from 2010 to 2019 (where the data ends).
Despite Tory Housing Minister Rachel Maclean's wild claims about 'record house building' under the @Conservatives on #bbcqt, the number of homes available to rent in the UK has fallen by a third over the past 18 months.
Just two opinion polling companies have put Reform UK on 20% or more: People Polling (owned by Legatum Snr Fellow Matt Goodwin) & Whitestone Insight (CEO Andrew Hawkins).
The links to Reform UK, the Evangelical Christian Right & fossil fuel interests are concerning.
On 18 June, a poll commissioned by GB "News" (co-owned by Legatum), conducted by Snr Fellow at Legatum Matt Goodwin, put Reform on 24%
The average of all polls since is just 16%.
Only two other outlier polls have put Reform on 20% or more - both conducted by Whitestone Insight.
Before revealing the connections between the two outlier polls & Reform UK & fossil fuel interests, some important context.
In 1997, all the polls correctly predicted Blair’s landslide. That most polls significantly overstated the size of his victory passed virtually unnoticed.
Nowhere in the world have private equity firms found a more welcoming playground than in the UK: the volumes of buyouts have over the past two decades weighed more in the overall economy than in any other advanced market, including the US.
Private equity firms have snapped up high street names from grocers Asda and Morrisons to sandwich chain Pret A Manger, and invested in sectors ranging from insurance to nursing homes and infrastructure.
Now their record, and relatively lower taxation, are once again coming under heightened scrutiny ahead of the election. Labour wants to increase taxes on the performance fees that fund managers receive from asset sales, so these 'dealmakers' may be tempted to relocate elsewhere.
Why did they hold a joint event with barking Clare Fox's Battle of Ideas on “Indoctrination in Education” with barking Frank Furedi of Spiked Online as a speaker?
Britain is NOT America. Not yet.
The term 'Judeo-Christian' became widely used in the US during the Cold War to suggest a unified American identity opposed to communism.
The “Judeo-Christian tradition” was a political invention: an ecumenical marketing meme for combating godless commies.
The term 'Judeo-Christian' is now widely & misleadingly mobilised by the far-right to divide people, mainly by demonising 'Others' (especially Muslims).
"My beliefs are based on a Judeo-Christian worldview that’s thousands of years old" - Miriam Cates.
Danny, a leading expert on housing, health, employment, education & poverty, has published with colleagues more than a dozen books on issues related to UK social inequalities, & several hundred journal papers - which is probably why he's so rarely on TV.
Middle England has been hit hard by the #costoflivingcrisis. Even people doing comparatively well are struggling.
Across Britain, opportunity has been replaced by food banks. Pre-COVID, life expectancy dropped as a result of poverty for the first time since the 1930s.
The hateful anonymous @X account @benonwine constantly tweets out divisive, inflammatory far-right pro-Farage tweets.
Because it's impossible to find out who is behind the grotesque account, we cannot know who, or what, is behind it. It's the same for @UKUpdates_co_uk.
Now that all the main parties have published their manifestos, rather than actually read them, the overwhelming majority of voters will rely on (almost invariably partisan) third-party accounts to summarise and/or interpret them.
But how accurate & reliable is their analysis?
In 2019, in 'The explosion of the public sphere', Dr Martin Moore (Centre for the Study of Media Communication & Power at Kings College) & Dr Gordon Ramsay (University of Westminster) outlined recent developments in our insufficiently regulated UK media.