Simon Jeffrey

Superficially feels like a good match up - sell cars, finance and pharma for food.

Is there any interest or opportunity for a UK-Mercosur deal, copying it like we did with Canada FTA?

He identifies as Northern Irish and golf is like rugby in having an island-of-Ireland association. Seems like a quirk of history rather than identity that that’s who he represents in rather than if he’d been a runner or a footballer.

Yeah that and general cost pressures. Can’t imagine being owned by the Issa brothers for a few years was terribly helpful, if their stewardship of Asda is anything to go by.

European ministers back ECHR plan to tackle illegal migration - BBC News Countries in the treaty - including the UK - will negotiate a "political declaration" to make it easier to deport migrants.

Good write up on BBC but nowhere near the front page apparently. Further down than any of the individual Article 3 or 8 cases would be if covered in the Mail.

Looks like UK govt has got 26 other countries to sign up to looking again at how judges have interpreted Art 3. Let’s see if it’s in in the ECHR summit political declaration of 47 members come May. Surprised to read that those declarations apparently do carry weight and can alter/undo precedent.

I've jumped the gun on saying it's Crystal Palace but don't think I've heard anything about managing the freight paths issues that limit Clapham Junction to 4tph

Hopefully get Peckham Rye to Clapham Junction up to 6ph too at some point. End up with 20tph through the Windrush core.

Good news for South East London. Windrush will see an extra 2tph to Crystal Palace from next December, making 6tph.

Incredibly unjoined up thinking if UK govt doesn't try to combine this thing that EU wants with customs union talks - a 'big bold offer' on YES that walks and talks remarkably like a freedom of movement with David Cameron renegotiation characteristics.

Seems odd to aim for reciprocity within youth mobility schemes while net migration rate of EU citizens is -96k. That combined with the -44k net migration via other UK youth mobility schemes would be a much better conception of head room for the scheme.

Waymo already in London. Going to be an endless source of stories local journalism/news sites for the next couple of years. Suspect there'll be at least one *grasping hands meme* moment of Black Cab drivers and cyclists at the barricades together.

Not sure. GBR is a mouthful, fine for a name of the organisation. But the brand for the service should be Intercity if they're getting rid of GWR/LNER etc (which I quite like tbh), ideally with the black, white and red stripe 'swallow' livery.

Struggle to see a £55bn Crossrail 2 being built. Or a 25% cheaper £40bn Crossrail 2. The design is too expansive, needs to start over. Luckily non-crackpots think there are much narrower, cheaper ways to do things - and potentially do the Crossrail/RER concept better - than the current iteration.

POSIWID. HMT wants to ensure higher earners can retire early in luxury and avoid burnout with 4-day week on the way. Extremely caring.

Yeah, doesn’t stack up for them. Long term, seems inevitable that higher supply and lower house price inflation would require significantly reduced share of output from volume housebuilders. Their dominance in UK a predictable - rational - outcome of restrictive planning system.

No one thinks it's doable - labour force and materials supply plus productivity improvements take time - but best policy will come from aiming to deliver it. And if they do somehow manage it, it puts an extra 1% on GDP vs OBR projections in election year.

Taking him at his word on the hockey stick growth to hit 1.5 million homes in the Parliament after ~400k in first two years he'll need 25% yoy growth:
26/27 - 270k
27/28 - 350k
28/29 - 460k

Steve Reed admits sharp rise needed to hit 1.5m housing target Housing Secretary Steve Reed tells the BBC's Build Baby Build ministers are

Hadn't seen a number put on it - and govt was annoyed that OBR didn't either - but Reed saying the 'default to yes' near train stations due in the renewed NPPF could be worth 1 million additional homes.

Edinburgh visitor levy to fund almost 500 affordable homes - BBC News It is the first planned spend from the £50m expected to be raised annually from the Edinburgh visitor levy.

Not sure I’d love this as someone in the tourism industry seeing costs for visitors going up. Can sort of see the link to freeing up B&Bs but that’s expensive, bad and a core job of councils and their funding already.

Great article. Can see the argument for capping domestic and international student places in successful local economies and funnelling towards cold spots/economically weaker regions.

Govt announced big reforms on Nov 12 to come in in Spring that *should* fix things. But beggars belief that rampant criminality sitting between public and a govt service didn’t merit pulling the big emergency intervention lever last year pending final decision rather than tweaking while waiting.

GB smashing through its old wind record of Nov 11th (22,711MW)

Neso dashboard was showing 23,845MW last time I looked

Exact numbers will shake out later.

Excellent, Harlow finally filling out its original master plan and expanding to the north of the train station. Great location and connections each way. Growing towards small-city size definitely helps fund/improve the case for getting Crossrail2 back on track - although alternatives might be better

If Starmer avoided what Theresa May was criticised for in her negotiation he’d: set a clear positive ambition to Brussels ‘we’ve had enough of red lines, let’s talk green lights blah’, invite any willing Tories/Lib Dems et al in process, and hold indicative votes on options before opening talks?

Struggling to understand why we’ve had this Skripal inquiry. No one seems to disagree on anything so nothing to settle there and we’ve learned nothing we didn’t know from what I’ve read and seen so far. And we’re now, 7 years later, ‘cracking down on Russian intelligence’?!

Cheshire & Warrington and Cumbria CAs will be getting half of the Mayoral investment fund each year from 25/26 and the other CAs are getting a third from 26/27 until the Mayors are in post. Other material impact of the delay is that the elections will be under SV rather than FPTP.

TfL bids to take over Moorgate mainline with plan to increase Great Northern services Transport for London (TfL) has formally applied to take over the mainline railway out of Moorgate station north to Welwyn Garden City and to Stevenage via Hertford North.

Transport for London (TfL) has formally applied to take over the mainline railway out of Moorgate station north to Welwyn Garden City and to Stevenage via Hertford North.

www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/tfl...

Absolutely joyless.

I didn’t think they’d go through with it. No one will be cheering for ‘London’ when there are two London teams (London Spirit ended up leaving fans cofused about what shout). And I can’t quite see ‘come on Mumbai/ Indians’ catching on unless it’s a London Irish sort of thing… which it ain’t.