I don't see an alternative to trying, I mean, what else is there?
Northern correspondent, Financial Times šManchester
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I don't see an alternative to trying, I mean, what else is there?
Labour needs to give up magical thinking on āreformā on.ft.com/3UVx7Hb | opinion
Ah I think thatās bad advice no? Although i remember getting advice that certain things werenāt worth going to in personā¦and they absolutely were
All good digital tools are welcome. But I know what weāre like at coveting local govt in this country
Iām not going to spend the entire night having a debate. My point was that if you want to understand where some of the politics comes from then itās worth understanding that much resentment about immigration crystallises around housing shortages/rationing
In other words if you break down the reasons why people are entitled to homelessness support, family reunification is in some places a huge part of what councils are handling (more so than id realised until quite recently, and Iāve been writing about it longer than Iād like)
Family reunification - ie someone has successfully claimed refugee status, then claimed the right to bring family from their home country - is a genuine pressure on some council homelessness accommodation, over and above the pressures councils wd have anyway because of eg evictions and so on.
What part of it wasnāt extremely clear
Grr thatās me done now for my council rant
Covering a council is covering a community. Itās fascinating, entertaining, tragic. itās all human life. Itās all the things that make a country a country but in little important and hilarious bits.
You wonāt get that from a search engine on transcript, Iām sorry. It will be an extremely useful tool that I imagine I will use, and which some people will use to catch cllrs out legitimately on all sorts of things. It is Not. The. Same as covering a council
If you understand whatās happening locally with this stuff youāve got a better chance of understanding where the national politics is coming from. And a massive amount of it, in the case of immigration politics, is housing. Sitting in council meetings is one of the best ways to understand it.
Another massive part of what local govt is doing, in the same space, is competing with the home office *for the same housing*
A small eg Bluesky will hate. Local govt deals with the sharp end of the housing crisis via homelessness demand. Family reunification is a massive part of current homelessness demand in some places. If you sift through whatās coming through the front door, you know what policy is and isnāt working
Tell you what though: if you can be bothered funding/sending those reporters out youāll find out about the country.
FF to next May, when there are likely to be a bunch more Reform councils but also a load of cities with some weird and wonderful makeups thanks to how fast things are fracturing, the only way to really understand it will not be a search engine, it will be sitting in the back of the mad room.
Takes time and effort. Yes. It does. The time and effort involved is meeting the humans. Other humans. Understanding why certain communities do what they do and their representatives say what they say
No, because Reform conference hasnāt been a thing before, because last summer the party was barely a thing at all. Heathrow are doing Heathrow by the looks of it
There has been a spate of St Georgeās crosses popping up in north wales towns and I donāt know if Iād be totally against some really rubbish dragons popping up on the street furniture of northern England in return
Well some people have, for reasons best known to themselves, been plastering St Georgeās flags around in Wales so actually theyāre not wrong. Also the BBC does say union flags as well.
And probably more to the point HMO discourse
Itās not like they left Westminster in a good mood either
Which isnāt to minimise it btw, it will have genuinely flooded the inbox and taken up considerable time at surgeries
Wondering what the net effect for Starmer will be of a bunch of very jittery northern and midlands MPs with small majorities after spending a month back in their seats (beach sojourns notwithstanding) immersed in flag and hotel discourse
I think Iām right in saying the blonde one was called Juliette but whatever she was called, small me wanted to be her
Iām here for this
Oh no
Iāve always found skyrocketed annoying. Rocketed is sufficient
It was SAT NEXT TO ME on the sofa. Unacceptable
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I see big house spiders are back in a big way. Iām ok with a spider - need all my phobia bandwidth to avoid wasps - but tonightās specimen belongs in a zoo
August has been exhausting. There is something intensely suffocating about British politics atm and parliament hasnāt even been sitting.
Iāve scrolled past this several times, thought about it, scrolled back and thought about it, and still been none the wiser
Of course the framing matters but I donāt know what questions have or havenāt been asked. What I donāt want is ādo you support a future powered by AIā. I want something that gets into the practicalities, see what choices people think are right. Very easy to talk about data sheds in the abstract
Data shed sorry. Looks like a logistics shed I suppose in many respects but with quite a few key differences
(And yes I will go and ask people myself but interested in any research as a starter for ten)
Ta
And if that sounds cynical the clue is in my job title
Politicians have long told northern communities that green energy is the future of their economies. Iād like to know what the same communities think about the prospect of an AI shed instead
Morning hive mind Iād like to know: is there any polling on what people think about giant data sheds? Not āis AI goodā but ādo you see this as the potential future for your local economy, are you worried about it gobbling up your electricityā, that sort of thing
Maybe theyāre anticipating that by 2029 Labour may have vaguely proposed actually connecting it to Manchester. Looking for something big to cancel? Let us assist
I imagine itās more about risk calculation and getting stuff out direct via social than leveraging better coverage. By default there will probably be fewer embarrassing interviews in the press if youāre not doing any
Locally you may well get away with it, rely on FB utterances etc to get the message out. Local also means national here though, on a variety of levels, including the potential local govt map after next yearās local elections. Nottinghamshire may not just be Nottinghamshireās problem
Wonder if this will be a national approach
Eesh. Notts Reform leadership blacklisting both the local paper and the local democracy scheme that covers the council for the BBC. Donāt like this at all www.nottinghampost.com/news/news-op...
Ā£400 return from Manchester to London is disgusting, but - notwithstanding a failure to hold the operator to account within the dft, another govt failure - ultimately there is too much demand for the services available: and we canāt run more, because we havenāt invested.
I think passengers generally blame both govt and operator when the service is rubbish and expensive and generally theyād be right. Thereās definitely a confusion around accountability but clearer sight lines are also likely to expose the political truth - good rail costs money, either fares or tax
He does, Iāve been consulting his advice
Iāve been trying to reconcile the lack of connecting trains between Croatia and Serbia/Bosnia, which are not currently a thing for [reasons]. Good luck!
Finally found a rail system more arcane than ours. I feel like Iāve had a solid grounding in this though, perhaps thatās what it was all for
Mmm. Ok will do
I was walking along behind two lads and we all turned round at that; they started laughing and taking the piss. Tbh Manchesterās response the other weekend mostly felt like a collective eyeroll/why are you in the way of my bus stop
There were USA, USA chants at the Manchester rally, which I also found perplexing. So yeah maybe the two things are connected
Can anyone explain to me what the wooden crucifixes thing is about, as mentioned here? There was one at the Britain First rally in Manchester a few weeks ago and at the time I assumed it was an odd one off, but clearly not observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
My piece on racism for @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
Reminds of the fall out last summer after an exhausting ten days or so of proper riots here. At some point the planned protests lost steam and got outnumbered by the counter protests. In Brighton it ended up like this
I also donāt want another five years of Stockport friends asking when the tram is coming like Iām the tram oracle so Iāve got skin in the game here
Yes, itās a tricky project. But after the last set of extensions it became entirely unclear what the next priority was. That was the case before I left the MEN in 2022 and I just wonder whether part of this slow pace is a political unwillingness to be seen to pick a horse - Stockport or Middleton
I know they will have been waiting for CRSTS etc so a lot will be about funding. But Iāve always been a bit puzzled by the pace of the getting together of the prioritising/plans, know what I mean? In my old job I regularly asked āwhere is the tram going nextā and the answer was always fudgey
Hopefully Iāll now get messages telling me. Thankyou for your attention to this matter
Not to say GM still has a good track record of transport delivery of course. Historically what it was good at was choosing a thing and getting on with it. I donāt know whether delays in the choosing of the thing are partly the issue here
GM has a good track record on transport delivery yet even here it apparently takes that long. Quite why GM is only now at the point of drawing up a strategic outline case after all these years of chat (which often imply itās coming tomorrow) Iām not sure
Donāt follow the day to day of GM transport in the way I used to but am struck by the latest release saying work will start on a Stockport tram extension in 2030 (assuming all various plans go to schedule). This was being promised at the 2019 general election. So 11 years from that chat to starting
Ok, well clearly I didnāt say that. I said this is something already out there in public conversation that is being politically leveraged even before it hits discourse more widely. The article highlights that local HMO concern has already prompted councils to change tack, particularly since May
Iām not suggesting local FB groups are representative of the population and didnāt say that. What I am saying is that itās already a loud topic in some circles, circles that donāt include Bluesky - in the main - and the wider chat about it will probably get louder. The article goes into depth.
(If youāre on a FB group in many areas, or been watching Reformās press conferences, youāve already heard a lot)
While the current asylum debate revolves around hotels, there is already a backlash building against the Home Officeās most obvious alternative - and Reform have clocked it. Expect to hear more about HMOs in the coming months on.ft.com/477sAc7
Yeah but Margate is about something much bigger isnāt it, itās the turning round of an entire economy
Despite the focus on hotels, most asylum seekers are accommodated in housing - often HMOs. But the pushback against HMOs is growing, esp in the north. A series of councils has moved in the last 6 months to tighten restrictions, while Reform bang the drum locally and nationally on.ft.com/41J5aGk l
For anyone interested in the HMO/asylum political dynamic (as opposed to the hotels) it came through loud and clear in County Durham during the local elections on.ft.com/4lzwjml
The housing theory of everything strikes again
Final add: govt has promised to exit hotels by the end of the parliament. But interestingly Mears (asylum contractor in the north east) stated in their half year results that govtās intention is to get out in 2026. In the meantime, Mears expect to have bought ~Ā£50m in housing by year end.
Hereās Warrington council at the end of July:
Worth adding that this situation is partly why Starmerās comments to liaison ctte before recess - that thereās plenty of housing for this in some LAs - was met with such incredulity. Nobody has a surplus of housing but in some areas councils needing TA are directly competing with the Home Office
In the meantime, Iād feel fairly confident in predicting that weāll hear a lot more about HMOs in the public debate over the coming yr. Reform, who are eyeing up a series of all-outs in mets across the north next April, will use any planning power available and any opportunity to raise it nationally
Then using it temporarily for asylum and temporary accommodation, before holding it as legacy social housing in the long term. But of course we do have a shortage of housing whatever way the govt jumps. To quote @jonnelledge.bsky.social, as usual, it comes back to build more bloody houses
Ultimately you come back to the question: whatās the alternative? Other than bringing net numbers down, one proposal put forward a year ago by the housing association chief exec Kate Wareing was to switch from paying Serco etc to distort the market to letting councils borrow to buy up stock
One NW Lab MP: āIf there is one simple thing you could do to defy Reform and show working class communities we get it and are on the right side, it would be to ban Serco from taking more than a certain % of rented properties in a certain area.ā
Nearly 80% of asylum seekers in the NW are already accommodated in dispersed housing rather than hotels (as of December - fig may be higher now). But contractors are still buying up more as part of the govtās pivot away from hotels and Lab MPs are getting jittery
That HMO bruise - and if you look at the debate online itās very much there - is being pressed hard by Reform, both in their national press conferences and in local campaigning, as well as by the Tories in some areas.
While most councils are not explicitly equating their new restrictions with asylum, many of the places cracking down have seen increases in asylum seekers in HMOs - and a growing conflation in the public consciousness between asylum and anything calling itself an HMO, even if it isnāt for asylum
HMOs are unpopular anyway. But the reason they are proliferating, often in poorer communities - comes back to the housing crisis. Everyone is competing in the same private rental market: Home Office contractors, individuals needing cheap tenancies, councils needing homelessness accommodation
Despite the focus on hotels, most asylum seekers are accommodated in housing - often HMOs. But the pushback against HMOs is growing, esp in the north. A series of councils has moved in the last 6 months to tighten restrictions, while Reform bang the drum locally and nationally on.ft.com/41J5aGk l
I donāt know how much itās cost the police but I know itās costing local services in general. I did this on the worries about it on.ft.com/459QXDe
Yeah. I know itās been in Britanniaās hands for 20 odd years so well past its heyday, but it did have a heyday people remember and itās so prominent. Plus there are council/police worries about virtually everything - health/conditions inside, security, it being a target (it was last week in fact)
Yes thatās definitely in the mix.
Yep. More from me on that in a few weeks
A bit like people remembering when that hotel was a symbol of pride or whatever, people can remember a time when they could get a council house and their kid now canāt. Why is that guy living in that house instead? Assumptions get made about who that guy is. But the housing thing is still real
Itās all bound up in the same stuff; a lot of people donāt distinguish. And very often housing is really key to the politics of it imho
There has long been this confusion though. In 2016 I went to Oldham to write about asylum because politicians were at their wits end that a v poor town was at official saturation point with no extra public service Ā£ (see Blackpool, 2025). The ppl I asked about it all talked about Romanians instead
Dunno. For landlords HMOs are kerching in this context, but home office contractors make more out of the hotels, according to the limited evidence out there, and the hoteliers themselves get moreorless guaranteed full occupancy. But in all cases someone is doing very nicely out of it
Maybe deeper is the wrong word. Something else, anyway
Much obliged, thankyou
Thatās not me editing out the racism. Iām seeing a lot of that too. But thereās something deeper going on I think as well
I was just about to say that re the nostalgia. But those days are recent enough that a decent chunk of people remember them, however imperfectly, and itās particularly potent in places that have seen very steep decline over half a lifetime. The hotels end up being political symbols
Anyway there will be something long from me on this exact topic in a few weeks, if I ever get to the finishing line
Having said that Iām fairly sure some people do think asylum seekers are being put up in fancy establishments, helped by rather a lot of reporting that describes places that have previously been done for all sorts of public safety breaches as luxury
I can think of a number of asylum hotels that fall into this category, esp in faded seaside towns. Some of them are pretty potent in their symbolism, Blackpoolās being a particularly striking example. Thereās quite a lot of things bound up in the hotel rage (and in other ways in the HMO rage)
Itās about creating uncertainty about whose side theyāre on isnāt it
Interesting. This is attack stuff Iāve seen some of the trade unions do, but less so Labour