Why does the left keep saying Thatcher caused the housing crisis by introducing RTB? It wasn't the selling off of council houses that led to a housing shortage, but the subsequent failure - by all governments - to reform planning in a way that would actually have allowed enough new houses to be built.

I'm sure some Tory voters are guilty of having opposed planning reform due to NIMBY-ism, but the left seems to equally oppose it due to the possibility that evil construction companies might make some money and not sell enough of the houses at knock-down prices ('affordable housing quotas').

What are people's opinion on the ongoing flag debate?

Personally i think they should be reserved for specific days or events like the World Cup, the Olympics, or national holidays.* In my opinion having them up 24/7 makes the place look tatty, even worse if they're painted on public property because then the local council has to spend time & money removing your paint job.

*Somewhat unrelated but to make a wider point here. Last Christmas one of my local towns put up all its public decorations by the middle of November. I understand people are excited but something is only made special by it's adherence to a specific time to celebrate it. Extending the period around which one celebrates an event makes it unfocused and it loses what makes it special if we can just celebrate it whenever we like.

I feel the same way toward the flags, i feel that having them up year-round flattens the experience when an appropriate time does come to be patriotic; in this way they become less like decorations for celebration and more so overbearing symbols that will inevitably lead to miscommunication over their intended purpose.

This might be a bit an controversial discussion but what does everyone feel about the Monday club?

My card has Lammy, Reeves, James Murray, Darren Jones, Liz Kendall, Wee Dougie and Peter Kyle all being boiled down for glue. Especially Darren Jones.

(I know it isn't the weekend, but in common with many fine Conservatives, I have a degree of reverence for the past).

Good morning all :)

So i recently took a look at the website Conservative Home, in particular their most recent article about their coverage of CPAC Great Britain caught my attention, i quite liked their article and found i agreed with pretty much all of their points. Upon perusing the comment section however i found many people, probably leaning toward the majority if you count likes/dislikes ratios etc, did not agree with the sentiments and/or points expressed in the article.

I was under the impression that Conservative Home was like an independent off-shoot of the Conservative Party, like they're not technically affiliated but they might as well be sort of situation. I was a bit surprised to see that many responding to the article seemed to be on the Reform/MAGA spectrum of politics. I understand I'm fairly new to conservative politics, so perhaps I've assumed wrongly, but i had considered the Conservatives and Reform/MAGA types to be separate. Would you say it's similar to how a Labourite and a Marxist could realistically attend the same conference because the political ideology they stem from is the same but nevertheless they still hold quite starkly different views? Or perhaps i am looking too deeply into it and it isn't considered a genuine reflection of the Conservative Party?

Thanks :)

If not I would highly recommend it, especially their Friday episodes with Kristian Niemitz. Sorry for the promo, it's not self-promo as I have nothing to do with them. Just thought it is criminally underrated right now.

I listened to Andy Burnham's speech to his party on Friday. I'm troubled by his claim that ordinary people have been let down by Britain's economic model for forty years, because it's demonstrably false. Actually I don't really understand why he doesn't just say 45 years, or since the early '80s, because that's when the effects of Thatcherism and what he calls 'neo-liberalism' kicked in.

If you listen to the rhetoric of the left and you're gullible enough to take it seriously you may well imagine that the poor have steadily become poorer at the expense of the rich.

But the reality is very different. I asked ChatGPT to compose graphs based on the living standards of working class people since 1961, when the recorded data starts.

I've attached two graphs. One shows UK real household income since 1960, the other shows poverty, expressed in absolute terms.

The "25th percentile" means people 3/4 down the disposable income ladder. Material standards for them have risen enormously in the last 40 years. They actually take off in the 1980s. Ordinary, working people on higher incomes than that have done even better.

So let's consider poverty, as well. That's a trickier concept because it's a relative term. The general definition is that "a person is in relative poverty if their household income is below 60% of the median household income for that year, adjusted for household size". In other words, a person considered to be living in poverty in (say) 1995, might, with the same real terms household income, have been considered to have been well above the poverty line in (say) 1965.

So to account for that I'm using, specifically, the 2010-22 median income, real terms, as the baseline. The second graph shows what happened on the same timescale.

Absolute poverty was already declining steadily when Thatcher took charge in 1979, interestingly. But it continues to decline, just as steadily, until (roughly) 2010 or so, when it flatlines. Whatever causes it to bottom out, for sure it wasn't the economic model that had diminished absolute poverty surely and steadily for 30 years.

So: Burnham's claim that the economic model of the last 40 years has made ordinary people worse off is just daft. It doesn't withstand a moment's scrutiny. It's either flatly dishonest or simple ignorance.

He'll be Prime Minister on Monday.

EDIT: Thanks for the responses. I see a few people have been triggered by the use of AI to compile the graphs. It did actually provide the sources, and I did examine them. Here are some links:

https://ifs.org.uk/living-standards-poverty-and-inequality-uk
https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-03/Incomes%2C%20poverty%20and%20inequality_0.xlsx
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/crxx/ukea

The basic thrust of my point is correct: material standards for the poor have risen enormously over the last 40-45 years. Hope this helps.

Thought this was a very good article about what Burnham and Labour misunderstand about their own movement's history of localism! And, also, what it might take for British people to learn to govern themselves again (and to want to!).

I think it also has a lot of relevance to conservatives who believe in the virtue of a small state and strong civil society, since we have to understand where that came from in the period of roughly 1870-1920.

I keep thinking about this in the context of cities like London and New York. They are arguably capitalism's biggest success stories, but due to creating so many jobs, most of their population then becomes left wing (because of the large % of workers vs capital holders), voting for mayors like Sadiq and Zohran.

Eg if one entrepreneur in London creates 20 jobs, s/he will likely vote Tory, while a majority of their 20 employees will Iikely vote Labour. Furthermore, the high rents in these cities - which are only high because of the large number of jobs and opportunities that capitalism creates there - are likely to turn renters to left wing ideas like rent controls.

Is there some way to solve this problem? Is it a more recent phenomenon, given Boris' 2 mayoral victories?

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A shake-up of the asylum appeals system lands on Monday.

MPs debate the Immigration and Asylum Bill, and there's already some disagreement about it on the Labour benches.

It's the last week before recess.

MPs leave Westminster for the summer at the end of Thursday. They return on 1 September.

That means this is Keir Starmer's final PMQs.

Wednesday marks his last outing at the despatch box. Barring any major upsets, Andy Burnham will be named Labour leader on Friday, and becomes prime minister three days later.

MONDAY 13 JULY

Immigration and Asylum Bill – 2nd reading
Applies to: the whole of the UK
Creates a new body, the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority, to decide immigration appeals. Currently, judges make those decisions but the new adjudicators won't need legal qualifications. Makes it harder for migrants to use human rights laws to avoid deportation. Replaces refugee status and humanitarian protection with a single 'protection status', and lets the Home Secretary claw back some of the accommodation and support costs from refugees who can afford to repay them. Overhauls modern slavery law, giving police wider powers over people thought to pose a trafficking risk and extending supply chain transparency rules to public sector organisations.
Draft bill (PDF) / Commons Library briefing

TUESDAY 14 JULY

Representation of the People Bill – report stage and 3rd reading
Applies to: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland
Lowers the voting age to 16 for all UK elections. Introduces automatic electoral registration, so eligible voters are added to the register without having to apply. Expands the list of accepted voter ID to include bank cards. Also tightens rules on political donations.
Draft bill (PDF) / Commons Library briefing

Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill – consideration of Lords amendments
Applies to: the whole of the UK
Gives the government powers to nationalise steel companies. Follows the government’s emergency intervention in April 2025, when it used special measures to keep British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnaces running after owner Jingye announced plans to close them.
Draft bill (PDF) / Lords Library briefing

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Amendment) Bill
Removes the blanket exemption that currently shields the King, the wider Royal Family, the Royal Household and the Royal Archives from Freedom of Information requests. Brings the monarchy and the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster within scope of the Act, meaning the public could request information about how they use public money and assets. Ten minute rule motion presented by Siân Berry.

WEDNESDAY 15 JULY

Registration of Stillbirths (England and Wales) Bill
Allows parents to register a stillbirth remotely, rather than having to attend a register office in person, easing the process for grieving families at an already difficult time. Ten minute rule motion presented by Jim McMahon.

THURSDAY 16 JULY

Health Bill – committee stage
Applies to: England (some measures apply UK-wide)
Abolishes NHS England and folds its functions back into the Department of Health and Social Care, in a bid to cut bureaucracy and speed up decision-making. Also reforms the structure of integrated care boards and foundation trusts, and introduces a single patient record shared across the health service.
Draft bill (PDF) / Commons Library briefing

FRIDAY 17 JULY

No votes scheduled

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