"Roland Perry" wrote

internationalised a US site for the UK by changing the State field name
into County.

I wonder if we could thwart them by typing "England" as the county and
"European Union" as the country?

When I first encountered the difficulty, "England" as the state and "UK" as
the country worked fine

--
Mike D

In article ,
(e27002 aurora) wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 08:52:47 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

On Friday, 22 January 2016 13:49:39 UTC, e27002 wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 05:26:11 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

On Friday, 22 January 2016 12:51:22 UTC, e27002 wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 02:09:50 +0000, Basil Jet
wrote:

SNIP

In 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works was imposed on the urbanized
parts of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent adjacent to the City. This was
an unelected, unpopular body that descended into corruption.

So, in 1889, without the consent of the governed, half of Middlesex,
and parts of neighboring Surrey, and Kent were annexed into the
London County Council Area.

Really - no members of parliament then - I thought the reform act was
in 1832.

Do remind me of when the residents of Middlesex were polled in a
referendum regarding their future.

General elections were held in 1885 and 1886 on a reformed franchise
(nor universal, but most adult males).

A referendum is only really appropriate for something one cannot
practically reverse e.g. Independence of Scotland or joining the EU.

If the boundaries do not work then parliament can just as easily revise
them as it did with the counties of Avon, Humberside and Cleveland.

All of which still exist for various purposes.

The London County Council was unique in being granted powers not
given to other counties. Why these powers could not have been
granted the Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent is a mystery.

Because they related to a capital city (and the largest urban centre
by a large margin)?

IIRC the extra powers related to education and orphanages. These are
hardly matters that could not be handled by the existing boroughs, or
counties.

Really, so why was ILEA set up then?

ILEA was incorporated in 1965 at the same time as the GLC. Prior to
that the LCC handled education,

ILEA was set up because it was not thought acceptable when the GLC was
created to break up the old LCC Education department. Later, After the GLC
was abolished Thatcher decided she could get away with doing so. It took
decades for inner London education to recover.

My post was in chronological order. So, yes, REALLY.

We'll have to agree to differ then. Cambridge and neighbouring South
Cambridgeshire still have council owned and run social housing because
tenants overwhelmingly voted to keep it that way.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 13:40:41 -0600,
wrote:

In article
,
(Jeremy Double) wrote:

aurora wrote:
[re local government arrangements in the London area]
So, England's historic core was being changed.

Arguably, England's historic core was Wessex and Mercia, not London.
England (as a single kingdom) was formed by the unification of the crowns
of Mercia and Wessex under Æthelstan and subsequent absorption of other
Anglo-Saxon territories...

You seem to be forgetting that England

Lloegr & _Cymru_

was pretty much united under Roman
occupation with London as a major city. The Anglo-Saxons were a bunch of
johnny-come-latelys.

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:27:12 +0000, BevanPrice
wrote:

On 22/01/2016 12:30, aurora wrote:


Then in 1965 came the ultimate land grab. Newly created Greater
London stretched from Chessington to Enfield. Middlesex ceased to
exist as a county authority. Most of remaining Middlesex became
Greater London, with small enclaves transferring to Surrey.

Are folks better off with these expensive monolithic structures? Let's
attribute good motives to the Whitehall instigators of this mishigas.
But, people are losing touch with their history, and who they really
are. This is not healthy.

Let's not ascribe good motives to the Whitehall crowd. They, along with
many "business" counterparts have decreed that "large is good", "small
is bad / inefficient, etc". Whether or not the people liked it (or
wanted it), in 1974, disparate towns were lumped together into invented
"boroughs" of some "ideal" size. Groups of boroughs were lumped together
into invented pseudo-counties, etc.

I subscribe to the "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately
explained by incompetence." school of thought. There is considerably
more of the latter.

Now, we have one part of a government proclaiming a need for local
decision making, whilst another half (Commissar Osborne) insists that we
must have city regions, or he won't let us "play with his toys" (i.e.
money)

What we really need is smaller units, in touch with local opinion,
supplemented by a mandate to cooperate with neighbours where that can
improve efficiency of some services. In the case of London, that could
mean that counties as far away as Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Suffolk,
etc., would remain independent, but have a mandate to cooperate on (and
support) rail services in "London Commuter land" - with some independent
panel to resolve arguments on funding, etc.

For once we are in agreement. Always better to have one's town hall
within walking distance, and chance meeting one's elected
representative out shopping, or whatever.

"e27002 aurora" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:49:52 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(aurora) wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 05:26:11 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

Do remind me of when the residents of Middlesex were polled in a
referendum regarding their future.

It was abolished in the days when the consensus was that referendums were
the tools of dictators and our system of representative government was
wholly accepted (except for Sunday pub opening in Wales).

The London County Council was unique in being
granted powers not given to other counties. Why these powers could
not have been granted the Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent is a mystery.

Because they related to a capital city (and the largest urban centre
by a large margin)?

IIRC the extra powers related to education and orphanages. These are
hardly matters that could not be handled by the existing boroughs, or
counties.

Much the greatest extra power was to build and manage council housing. No
other county had that. All counties had education powers.


IIRC the establishment of the LCC (1889) predates the Education Act
(1902).

You clearly believe government should be in the housing for rent
market.

Yes I do!

We have a situation at the moment where house prices to buy/rent are way
above what a large part of the electorate can afford. This has led to
windfall profits for owners of land that can get properties built on their
land.

We are attempting (and failing IMHO) to fix that problem by mandating that a
percentage of houses are available on a "low cost" basis to the prices out
demographic by subsidising them using money taken out of the pockets of the
purchasers of the more expensive properties - rather than from the people
who have made the windfall profits.

I think that wrong. We should be stopping the windfall profits, not "taxing"
house purchasers.

And, short of directly taxing those windfall profits (and idea that has been
mooted but abandoned as impractical), the only solution to the problem is
to bring down the price of new build properties (and hence the value of the
land they are sitting on) by swamping the market with millions of new
houses.

And it is impossible to expect private developers to build this excess of
house as they would have to buy the land to put them on at the inflated
prices (and hence go bankrupt in the process) The only way that we can
achieve this is if government agencies commission the house on land that
they have acquired at un-inflated prices.

And as I'm shortly to be retire and start living off my "pile", accumulated
mostly due to this perverse increase in house values - overall I don't give
a damn if UK PTB solve this problem, so you can shoot the messenger if you
wish

tim

On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 11:41:46 -0000, "tim....."
wrote:


"e27002 aurora" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:49:52 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(aurora) wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 05:26:11 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

Do remind me of when the residents of Middlesex were polled in a
referendum regarding their future.

It was abolished in the days when the consensus was that referendums were
the tools of dictators and our system of representative government was
wholly accepted (except for Sunday pub opening in Wales).

The London County Council was unique in being
granted powers not given to other counties. Why these powers could
not have been granted the Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent is a mystery.

Because they related to a capital city (and the largest urban centre
by a large margin)?

IIRC the extra powers related to education and orphanages. These are
hardly matters that could not be handled by the existing boroughs, or
counties.

Much the greatest extra power was to build and manage council housing. No
other county had that. All counties had education powers.


IIRC the establishment of the LCC (1889) predates the Education Act
(1902).

You clearly believe government should be in the housing for rent
market.

Yes I do!

We have a situation at the moment where house prices to buy/rent are way
above what a large part of the electorate can afford. This has led to
windfall profits for owners of land that can get properties built on their
land.

We are attempting (and failing IMHO) to fix that problem by mandating that a
percentage of houses are available on a "low cost" basis to the prices out
demographic by subsidising them using money taken out of the pockets of the
purchasers of the more expensive properties - rather than from the people
who have made the windfall profits.

I think that wrong. We should be stopping the windfall profits, not "taxing"
house purchasers.

And, short of directly taxing those windfall profits (and idea that has been
mooted but abandoned as impractical), the only solution to the problem is
to bring down the price of new build properties (and hence the value of the
land they are sitting on) by swamping the market with millions of new
houses.

And it is impossible to expect private developers to build this excess of
house as they would have to buy the land to put them on at the inflated
prices (and hence go bankrupt in the process) The only way that we can
achieve this is if government agencies commission the house on land that
they have acquired at un-inflated prices.



And as I'm shortly to be retire and start living off my "pile", accumulated
mostly due to this perverse increase in house values - overall I don't give
a damn if UK PTB solve this problem, so you can shoot the messenger if you
wish


Wouldn't think of shooting you for one moment Tim. I agree with your
diagnosis. I disagree with your treatment plan.

Government should set the rules and regulate. Private industry can
always do a better job. And, tenants tend to respect another person
property, more so than public property.

We should be looking at a new crop of new towns. These could be at
key nodes on the East-West Rail link, extending down to Didcot at one
end and towards Felixstowe at the other.

The London Boroughs should be looking at densification around key
transit nodes with high rise developments for singles and empty
nesters.

When a developer wants to build a new retail development, the
authority should ask "and how much commercial, and residential, space
to you plan to put above it.

Government's job is to Govern.

On 2016-01-23, e27002 aurora wrote:
8 --------
Government should set the rules and regulate. Private industry can
always do a better job. And, tenants tend to respect another person
property, more so than public property.

Talk to some of the people who do end-of-tenancy inventories for
private landlords (or agents), lack of respect is very common (though
not universal). Talk to some tenants who, no matter how well paid, well
dressed, and looking like a prospective buyer they are, are suddenly
treated like scum by estate agents when they say they want to rent. Talk
to some landlords who have given up trying to do the right thing because
many of their tenants have no respect at all for the property, or those
who have switched to commercial property rental because it is so much
less hassle.

We should be looking at a new crop of new towns. These could be at
key nodes on the East-West Rail link, extending down to Didcot at one
end and towards Felixstowe at the other.

How do we get the infrastructure built and who pays for it and makes
sure it is there before it is needed? In particular, how do we finance
the extra capacity for the railways?

The London Boroughs should be looking at densification around key
transit nodes with high rise developments for singles and empty
nesters.

When a developer wants to build a new retail development, the
authority should ask "and how much commercial, and residential, space
to you plan to put above it.

Well yes, but any attempts in that direction so far have not really
worked. Private enterprise developers offer as little as possible to
get approval, and then due to "circumstances" do even less. And then
we get the high-rise with two front doors so that the high-value buyers
(who are the ones the developers want) never have to see the occupants
of the affordable housing.

Government's job is to Govern.

Define "govern".

Eric
--
ms fnd in a lbry

wrote:
In article
,
(Jeremy Double) wrote:

aurora wrote:
[re local government arrangements in the London area]
So, England's historic core was being changed.

Arguably, England's historic core was Wessex and Mercia, not London.
England (as a single kingdom) was formed by the unification of the crowns
of Mercia and Wessex under Æthelstan and subsequent absorption of other
Anglo-Saxon territories...

You seem to be forgetting that England was pretty much united under Roman
occupation with London as a major city. The Anglo-Saxons were a bunch of
johnny-come-latelys.

But it was not England in Roman times, it was Britain (Britannia), and it
wasn't a kingdom, it was a Roman province. The word "English" derives from
the Angles of the Anglo-Saxons. The kingdom of England only originated
with the merger of the crowns of Wessex and Mercia.
--
Jeremy Double

On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 14:20:36 +0000, Steve Fitzgerald
] wrote:

In message , Paul Corfield
writes


It's all very well providing 'affordable housing' and very laudable it
is. Not everybody is able to afford or even wish to buy their own
property, however cheap you might make it.

Affordability: price is a function of supply and demand. Supply can
be increased as indicated up thread. Demand would be reduced if HMG
ceased accepting the dregs of Eastern Europe. The UK is hardly short
of bottom feeders.

As to wishing to rent. That is am excellent point. I certainly do
not buy a home in every City and Town wherein I work. Within the last
five years I have rented for two months in San Diego and for nine in
South El Monte.

Moreover when I first started esteblishing a presence on England's
south coast, I rented for two years until I saw a home I wanted to
buy, and was ready to do so.

So the answer is that old fashioned council house (social housing
nowadays).

Affordability: price is a function of supply and demand. Supply can
be increased as indicated up thread. Demand would be reduced if HMG
ceased accepting the dregs of Eastern Europe. The UK is hardly short
of her own bottom feeders.

As to wishing to rent. That is an excellent point. I certainly do
not buy a home in every City and Town wherein I work. Within the last
five years I have rented for two months in San Diego and for nine in
South El Monte.

Moreover when I first started establishing a presence on England's
south coast, I rented for two years until I saw a home I wanted to
buy, and was ready to do so.

So the answer is that old fashioned council house (social housing
nowadays).

For goodness sake why? The private sector can do it better and more
efficiently. By all means allow local authorities to contract with a
supplier to provide interim affordable rented homes.

But, spare us the humiliating experience of the council estate. Those
home should be sold ASAP.

They are available to the masses at a price that can be
afforded.

Ah, those "masses" what are they demanding now?

Yes they may need to be subsidised to a point but isn't that
what Society is about and better than tax credits?

Tax credits are a nonsense. Employers should pay a living wage or
move over. Why should another man's taxes subsidize bad employers?

Supporting our
weaker members should be what 'we' do?

Yes, we absolutely should, thru family, church, synagogue, friends and
charities not by stealing from worker's pay packets.

Remember: give a man a fish feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and
feed him and his family for life.

The world has become obsessed with people being able to purchase and I'm
not convinced it's helpful.

As pointed out up thread, there are exceptions. However, ideally a
family unit should have its own bricks and mortar. Otherwise there
are too many voters with no skin in the game. They will always vote
for the biggest handout.

In article
,
(Jeremy Double) wrote:

wrote:
In article

.net, (Jeremy Double) wrote:

aurora wrote:
[re local government arrangements in the London area]
So, England's historic core was being changed.

Arguably, England's historic core was Wessex and Mercia, not London.
England (as a single kingdom) was formed by the unification of the
crowns of Mercia and Wessex under Æthelstan and subsequent absorption
of other Anglo-Saxon territories...

You seem to be forgetting that England was pretty much united under
Roman occupation with London as a major city. The Anglo-Saxons were
a bunch of johnny-come-latelys.

But it was not England in Roman times, it was Britain (Britannia), and it
wasn't a kingdom, it was a Roman province. The word "English" derives
from the Angles of the Anglo-Saxons. The kingdom of England only
originated with the merger of the crowns of Wessex and Mercia.

Bunch on invading upstarts as I said, then!

--
Colin Rosenstiel