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Borners

@borners.bsky.social

360 followers 360 following 3.4K posts

Transit Costs Project Researcher 英国基進主義者 (English state buildingism...its better in the Sino-Japanese). Profile banner is Himeji's city plan on just 6 A4 pages, profile pic is Nagasawa Ryosetsu's picture of Crane (the virtuous man) staring at your soul.

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 18d

This is Himeji city's current city plan (western edge of Kansai's urban belt, 500,000 people, giant original castle). On 6 sides of A4. If you can't do that, you're planning system is probably not very good.
(For more on this ask for my dissertation on Himeji's transit oriented development)

Reposted by Borners

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 3h

I've spent *weeks* working on this special report for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social on GB News co-owner Paul Marshall – and the astonishing, unprecedented influence network he's built on the UK's right. There's never been anything like it before. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-p...

Paul Marshall, the man who owns the right

The multimillionaire controls a network of news channels, publications and think tanks that the left could only dream of. If Reform or the Tories win the next election, he will become the country’s mo...

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 3h

And more importantly from Jeolla.

Reposted by Borners

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 19h

One mistake Labour made in their first year is loading quite a few new costs onto business all at once. They are risking doing something similar on immigration, I think.

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 19h

300k p.a. is a NIMBY target. Also impossible with current local gov finance/planning regime and probably the United Kingdom (plundering SE local government is the only thing keeping the Union together).

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 19h

1. Discourse is US centric, and US states have money/powers, unlike "the country"
2. Deficit finance crowds out because they doubled down on Section 106 value capture.
3. There is no coalition really with 33.7% of the vote and most MP representing regions dependent on NIMBY economy i.e. not SE.

Gavin Jackson @gavinjackson.bsky.social · 20h

Britain as a case study in actually-existing abundance: promise to get rid of the “blockers” but planning reform takes ages, deficit-financed infrastructure spend crowds out house building and it’s hard to sustain a political coalition around possibly making an incremental improvement to growth.

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 21h

We never had "wonks" in any numbers. What we used to have was more experienced politicians who had serious work in local government, Union politics and national politics. Instead since 1997 its been government by neophytes.
And these guys aren't necessarily "campaigners" either.

R @liburghal.bsky.social · 23h

Important observation by @stephenkb.bsky.social, and one that makes me worry for the future if something doesn't change.

Not to root it in my "FPTP Theory of Everything" but I can't see it getting better given the increasingly fractious political landscape and the desire for campaigners over wonks.

Philip Cowley @philipjcowley.bsky.social · 1d

This brutal drive-by is in young @stephenkb.bsky.social's FT newsletter...

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 21h

Webinar in English with Yoshida Jiro, an expert on Japanese housing and its problems with depreciation/tax create for Japanese real estate. I have used his work extensively.
dajf.org.uk/event/the-ho...

The Housing Crisis in the UK and Japan

Rising housing costs have become a prevalent issue in many high-income countries, contributing to financial insecurity and social unrest. Whilst the UK presents one of the more extreme examples of thi...

dajf.org.uk

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 22h

I'm usually grumpy about all current policy since I live in a state that sees me as a 3rd class citizen to be exploited to keep its rubbish Union polity afloat so it can deliver Farage to supreme power. And also not build houses and trains because Londoners are "un-British".

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

1. Remember Outer Britain already confiscates 1/3 of Business rates from the SE. North wants more. See onging Barnett debate in Wales.
2. Dominant economic in the North is homeowners with jobs in state sector or the tax-land-arbitrage sector (logistics).
3. London is racially polluted/un-British

Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 1d

Ahhhh (endless screaming). Where do they think *council* tax revenues go? Seems like an argument for raising council tax in the south east so they can enjoy much better local public services www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Labour MPs call on Rachel Reeves to scrap council tax

Exclusive: 13 mainly northern MPs say a new system should better account for higher house prices in south-east

www.theguardian.com

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

1. Telling how we can't afford it or confiscate it. Oh how the wheel of fortune spins. Predator becomes prey etc.
2. "the nation", can't say which nation Henry ruled can we? Because he certainly didn't rule "Britain" or even really Northern Ireland (he did rule Dublin and Calais though).

Reposted by Borners

Philip Cowley @philipjcowley.bsky.social · 1d

This brutal drive-by is in young @stephenkb.bsky.social's FT newsletter...

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Reposted by Borners

Paul Nadeau @pauljnadeau.bsky.social · 1d

Seeing how Japan's conservatives are reacting to Komeito's defection from the coalition makes me think they'll break away from the LDP sooner rather than later.

If the LDP decides to redo the presidential election as some have suggested, it might even happen by the end of the year

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

Missing England is the point of the Union.
If your friend is in a bad way you tell them even if you can't help
Scotland uses it as a steal from England's pocket* while planning to run off with the inheritance
*the stealing from Eng Local gov makes fixing local gov impossible and thus housing crisis

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

FFS, Brown spent his entire career in service of nativist ultra-nationalism and imperialism. He rewrote the Barnett formula to plunder English local gov, vetoed Blair's ideas for getting rid of FPTP all so he and Scotland could live beyond its means.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

Brown chose nativism a long time ago. He's closer to Farage than any of his peers in 2008.

Reposted by Borners

Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · 1d

Four items by Mokyr: the first is a topic already recognised by the Nobel, but the other three are less well known areas of Mokyr: his study of the Irish famine, his explanation of why the Dutch Republic was not the first, and his artisan theory of the Industrial Revolution.

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

Are the Greece estimates too high or too low?

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

"Make the timetable as fragile as possible so that we can pretend to do something" is pretty-on target for UK mainline rail ops at the moment.
Or at least get rid of the Graveshead servies (god those are stupid).

Chris Ogilvie @ogilvie.org.uk · 2d

🚅 “Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS) Italy’s state-owned train operator is planning to plough up to £1 billion into the UK economy and reopen Ashford International in Kent, if it gets the go-ahead to rival to Eurostar.” 🆓 ⬇️
www.thetimes.com/article/acb9...

Rival to Eurostar says it will reopen Ashford International

Italian operator plans to plough £1 billion into UK economy and resuscitate railway station if it gets the green light for a Channel Tunnel service

www.thetimes.com

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

High elite diaspora babies are always the worst. They can combine the worst of both worlds privilege with resentment their superior pedigree is unrecognised in the West.
Also known as post-colonial condition.

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

So Osaka's holding of the 2025 World Expo ends today.

Which means Myaku-Myaku, the Eldritch abomination of a mascot will put back into hell- I mean retirement.

Its main legacy....an extension of the Chuo line and probably a giant gambling sorry "IR" resort.

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 2d

Fear, the suburbs are rank with it.

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 2d

Seriously why the shock? The Scots dismantled the British nation in 1999, every single Scottish MP since has been elected on a variety "plunder England through Barnett/Sewell/Independence with benefits/Gerrymanders tickets".

Mark McGeoghegan @markmcgeoghegan.bsky.social · 2d

Analysis in @thetimes.com by @leaskyd.bsky.social & Anna Dowell of the sharp decline in British identity uncovered by the Scottish Social Attitudes survey.

With comment from Sir John Curtice on the polarising of Scottish politics and from myself on the decoupling of Scottish and British identities:

Why Scots are losing their British identity

With only a quarter of respondents to the Scottish Social Attitudes survey identifying with Britishness, Scotland faces a generational political split

www.thetimes.com

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Borners @borners.bsky.social · 2d

All three of those problems predated her. You can complain she made them worse, but the entire-postwar period of UK doing badly on all.
Thatcher is a symptom not a cause.

David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2d

You only have to look at the state of the housing market, public transport and post industrial towns to realise that Thatcher was the cause of many current problems.

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 2d

Only 13?