White elephant houses [still] for sale

The amusing and long-running tale continues of the luxury 7-bedroom Croydon houses being offered with no garages and profoundly awkward vehicular access - at, errr, £1.65m apiece.

Well, they still haven't sold - despite the steeply-inclined driveway being nicely paved now, and one or two other cosmetic finishing touches being added (saplings, gates, handrails on the steep concrete steps, see these recent pics).

Steep prices, steep driveways  -  & no garages 

But they are now also being promoted by yet another estate agent - which specialises in marketing properties intended for buy-to-let.  

Can multiple occupancy and asylum-seekers be far behind?  They wouldn't have seven cars to go with the seven bedrooms ... (at least, not until they've "joined the labour market") and would be glad of the five bus routes that pass the front door, some of them 24/7, on the busy A232 'Red Route'.

ND

The French farce of 'one in, one out'

As our friend Mr Hēméra kindly pointed out BTL yesterday, my vision of a single small-boater being recycled endlessly between France & Dover & back to gain credits for the Frogs under 'one in, one out', may have come true almost immediately.  The Beeb led with the story yesterday, although the Graun kept it off their front www page altogether: we can imagine which approach goes down better with ministers ...  And the Beeb also announced that Mr Frog is no longer reckoning to puncture or otherwise intercept the boats in shallow water ... citing 'Elf-n-Safety!  (Have you ever seen a wheelchair user trying to access the Metro?  They have absolutely no concept of E-n-S there.)

All very entertaining.  And the supplementary questions are so easy to generate, it's almost embarrassing to do so.  But here goes, for starters.  

1. OK, chapter and verse, please, on how exactly the 'one in ...' points system works in such cases ...
2. ... and was it meant to be, errr, a deterrent?
3. Does this enterprising chap get another round of free legal aid in order to plead his case all over again?  With added sobbing and explanations of how France is unsafe for human habitation?
4. Where did he get the money for a second voyage?   (maybe the Louvre heist ..?)
5. How come the meejah all have interviews with him??  
6. Have the handful of (volunteer) Rwanda deportees also come back?

Just askin' ...

ND

__________

PS: thinking again about 4 & 5 above: along with two packets of 'Duchy Original' oat biscuits, did his "HMG farewell goodie-bag" from last time include €1,000 and an i-phone?

All up for Miliband?

Last week before a Select Committee, a bunch of genuine energy industry experts effectively demolished Miliband's plans - at least in his risible 2030 timing for de-carb and price cuts, if not in totality.  Their numbers and reasoning cannot be gainsaid.  Even the Grauniad has noticed.

And yet he & DESNZ still keep mouthing the same nonsense. "It's all the fault of gas. £300 bill reductions by 2030 are a commitment. 95% decarb elec by 2030. Both will come through investment in renewables, and that's the only way." 

Emperor. No clothes. It's too serious, just to point & laugh.  

I know he thinks Net Zero is his life's mission on earth & redemption for losing the 2015 GE; he's resilient, determined, politically adept and relentlessly optimistic: but how long can he last in office?  Before he's simply pushed by Starmer, or baited beyond endurance by Reeves, or his intellectual pride causes him to throw in the towel?

UPDATE, THURSDAY  -  not saying "you read it here first"; but this morning's Graun reckons it is indeed all up for Miliband's policies & targets.  Can he last until Xmas?  The Budget?

ND

Polly Toynbee: stopped clock, sometimes right

Something else I returned to was a Graun article by La Toynbee, which broadly makes a lot of sense. 

For baffling reasons, soon after the general election a government with a sky-high in-tray of problems embarked on a gigantic local council reorganisation no one knew about. It didn’t feature in the manifesto, nor in the local government secretary Steve Reed’s conference speech last week – but England has plans to axe unknown numbers of local councillors – some estimates put it at nearly 90%. The white paper outlining these plans actually boasts that there will be “fewer local politicians”, pandering disgracefully to the general scorn for politics ... For all the talk of localism and connecting to neighbourhoods, these are the unheralded foot soldiers of democracy. It is councillors who run political parties and much that binds their communities. Few people ever join political parties, yet the whole tottering democratic system relies entirely on those who do. Running the council and becoming a councillor is part of party members’ purpose and motivation. Abolishing so many will diminish democratic engagement over time

For once, she's right - it happens a couple of times per decade.  This is awful.  The "baffling reason", we must suppose, is Starmer's centralising tendency, coupled with his complete lack of political hinterland or general grass-roots experience.  

ND 

Putin 'apologises': an interesting development

Returned from a couple of weeks away to find interesting news on several international fronts.  One little-noticed development that particularly caught my eye is that Putin has publicly "apologised" to Aliyev for the shooting down of an Azerbaijani airliner last year, and acknowledged formally for the first time that Russian air defences were what caused the disaster.  When it happened 10 months ago, Putin commiserated over the event - well, he kinda had to, it happened over Russian airspace, FFS - but said only that Ukrainian drones had been in the area.  Ever since, Aliyev has been demanding full acknowledgement, apology, punishment of the guilty, and compensation; and only now does he get just the first two of these, along with a statement that the details are still being looked into.   The inverted commas around "apologised" are required because of course it was done in the most ungracious, weasel-like manner.  (Needless to say, the Russian 'patriotic' media space reckons Aliyev is seriously out of order for having the temerity even to mention the matter, and should be subjected to a Special Military Operation of his own as soon as, errr, resources allow.)  

Why apologise now?  We need to take into account something else that happened recently - when Putin went to Beijing for the VJ-Day 80th anniversary celebrations.  Xi engineered things so that as Putin was going into a reception, who should he meet at the door but Aliyev, and was forced to shake his hand as though Aliyev was receiving him into the occasion.  Being bounced like this went down exceedingly badly in Moscow: it was widely viewed as a humiliation for L'il Volodya.  

Which it was.  On massive international occasions where diplomatic choreography is everything - particularly where China is involved and symbolism is paramount - nothing like that happens by coincidence.  Putin was set up then; and afterwards presumably taken aside and told to get on with the public apology.  Much as Moscow likes to big up Putin sitting next to Xi, one couldn't but notice who was sitting on the other side ...  Yep, it was Jong-Un the Wrong'un.  That's Xi saying to the world: meet my two surly stooges - the guys who are wholly beholden to me.

Putin has never been forgiven by China for invading Georgia during the 2008 Beijing Olympics - a truly monstrous breach of protocol.  It would have been against the rules even during ancient times: the Games marked a truce across the whole of Greece.  But for proud, prickly China, it was an outrage.  In the Jan 2008 C@W annual predictions compo, I forecast the invasion but with one erroneous detail: I said it would be after the Olympics.  I mean, what kind of idiot would do it during ..?

ND