A Levels, Covid, Brexit. Worst Government Ever?

[nil_desperandum]

I know it won't change anyone's mind in the slightest but according to a guest on the BBC politics show tonight it was OFQUAUL that has reversed the decision because they hadn't got the capacity for the expected appeals process.

Not the Government

But this simply highlights the incompetency of the govt. and the failure of Williamson.
Someone should have been questioning Ofqual about this back in April when the exams were abandoned.
As I posted on the other thread. With no exams and therefore no marking / moderating etc, the teacher assessments were available back in June. Anyone involved in education could have anticipated discrepancies, problems and appeals when the results finally emerged. The Dept of Ed, (led by Williamson) failed to recognise this, or anticipate anything and did nothing. They had no policy.
With teacher assessments having been submitted back in June, provisional results could have been released and scrutinised by an independent panel in early July. If they were "happy" then initial "adjusted" results could have been released to schools in July, and a 5 or 6 week period be set aside for a large number of appeals throughout late July / August.
What was Williamson (and his team) actually doing between March and the publication of results last week?

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

Can anyone tell me why Dido Harding should be head of a new public health agency?
Answers on a postcard.

Of course she’ll be the most qualified for the post after rigorous rounds of interviewing with the other applicants.....

[Rileybobs]

Affordable housing has been a buzz phrase for a while now, most people will assume they're on about private houses to buy, not council houses to rent and then maybe buy.

Affordable houses should be private houses for purchase, but the market prices are intentionally kept inflated by keeping supply low whilst demand is high.

It's a massive con that's gone on for decades.

I agree to a point. But I see a lot of people confusing what is termed as affordable housing with market sale housing. Affordable housing is just a more discrete term for social housing.

I don’t know how you can limit what a private developer can sell a house for. Developers already have to provide a proportion of affordable housing. Rent to buy is a way for somebody who doesn’t qualify for social housing, but can’t afford the initial outlay, to own a home.

And some of the bigger developers may keep supply low to a point, but if you want to blame anything for the under-supply of housing then you needn’t look any further than the broken planning system.

[CombatClaret]

It only needs a minority to spread Covid.

They were right that people wouldn't abide by it.
I saw plenty taking the **** and breaking the rules, because they either felt that the rules didn't apply to them or they didn't believe/trust the gov.

Sure just one person can spread Covid but you won't get exponential growth from a small minority of people in a socially distanced or locked down society. That's the point, you don't need 100% compliance to slow it to a rate that's manageable. If we'd have locked down earlier there wouldn't have been anyone for the selfish people to interact with in the first place and it would have not stopped the spread but it would have put the brakes on far earlier and at a slower speed (or lower number) to begin with. Evidence backs this up, and the fact compliance with the lockdown when it did arrived was as high as 85-95% even if it had been sooner and this number was a lower it would have done huge amounts of good.

[Quickenthetempo]

But this simply highlights the incompetency of the govt. and the failure of Williamson.
Someone should have been questioning Ofqual about this back in April when the exams were abandoned.
As I posted on the other thread. With no exams and therefore no marking / moderating etc, the teacher assessments were available back in June. Anyone involved in education could have anticipated discrepancies, problems and appeals when the results finally emerged. The Dept of Ed, (led by Williamson) failed to recognise this, or anticipate anything and did nothing. They had no policy.
With teacher assessments having been submitted back in June, provisional results could have been released and scrutinised by an independent panel in early July. If they were "happy" then initial "adjusted" results could have been released to schools in July, and a 5 or 6 week period be set aside for a large number of appeals throughout late July / August.
What was Williamson (and his team) actually doing between March and the publication of results last week?

I honestly don't know the best way to go about it. On one hand schools/colleges will give the best grades they can so their schools/colleges get good pass rates. The other is pupils getting downgraded that don't deserve it.

I have a vested interest as my eldest lad is awaiting his GCSE results this week but nobody is sure if they will mean anything.

[nil_desperandum]

I have a vested interest as my eldest lad is awaiting his GCSE results this week but nobody is sure if they will mean anything.

I hope he gets the results that you hope for and he - hopefully - worked hard for.
My only vested interest nowadays is that I taught (and occasionally marked) GCSE and "A" level for the best part of 40 years up to 3 years ago, and was much involved in Uni applications, and the "fall-out" from exam results.
Achieving fairness was never going to be easy this year, (I readily acknowledge this) but there has been an abysmal failure of students by all those in charge, (inc Ofqual) but I'm afraid the buck stops with Williamson, Cummings and Johnson.

[Grumps]

I have problems with the Tories too though.

They have made mistakes.
When Covid was first appearing they should never have transported people back into the UK and then ferry them to bases for isolation etc.
When it hit Italy hard our borders should've been closed to everyone.

Brits abroad - should've been left out where they were but with accommodation costs etc paid for, running around to get them home just increased the chances of the Virus being transfered from one place to the other.

They failed to get a grip early on and we all paid for it.

They got somethings right like the Furlough scheme and the lockdown.

Really? So I came back in March, having left here in February when absolutely no restrictions in place.
The goverment should have paid for my hotel stay for how long?
All hotels in Spain then shut, and the country went into full lockdown, what would the thousands of British tourists done then, sleep on the streets?
Granted, more tests could have been done on people returning, but no goverment is going to abandon hundreds of thousands of British citizens on the streets of foreign countries.

[BenWickes]

Not been following it closely but my thoughts back in March were how are they going to mark the examinations? My initial thoughts back then were to have the teachers who know them best mark accordingly based on most recent tests/exams. Seems fairest considering the circumstances. is that what they're going to do? Can't think why the Govt thought an algorithm was gong to account for individuals.

[bfcjg]

The tories were always going to be at best incompetent when the opted for the comedic buffoon over Jermy Hunt.

[Bordeauxclaret]

Moving from one disaster to the next.
We’ve got a work shy PM and a cabinet picked for their loyalty alone.

No doubt he’ll ride this out, like the housing minister did.

[ArmchairDetective]

I'm impressed people still think houses are affordable in this day and age.

They're over priced, poorly built and there aren't enough being built because the housing developers strangle the market on purpose to keep prices inflated.

Yes but its okay, because we have a government that 5 years ago promised to build 200,000 new houses to help this issue. That first house should be coming along anytime soon now...

[Swizzlestick]

Moving from one disaster to the next.
We’ve got a work shy PM and a cabinet picked for their loyalty alone.

No doubt he’ll ride this out, like the housing minister did.

It really needs highlighting how bone idle our current PM is. It’s astonishing.

And regarding this shitshow....Cummings is the bar now. Anything above that, and they’ll just ride it out. The fact some acolytes are still willing to defend even Cummings shows they have a significant amount of wiggle room.

[JohnMcGreal]

It's funny how often the (toe-curlingly embarrassing) defenders of this shambolic government use Brexit as one of the reasons why they've found it difficult to cope with other issues. As though Brexit wasn't a man-made, self-inflicted mess created by these very same Tories in government.

It's also funny how people like Sid claim the government should be given the benefit of the doubt, because it's easy to be critical in hindsight, and then spends the next few posts criticising Tony Blair's government from nearly 20 years ago.

It's an open and shut case. This is the worst government in living memory. It's not even close. The scary thing is they're only 9 months in. God knows what state we'll be in at the end of their term.

[claretonthecoast1882]

There's a lot to go at here so maybe best to just focus on the last 10 days.......


1/ The govt said they had to "balance the nation’s health with our economy", and in that respect, they have succeeded: both are evenly balanced as the worst in the G7......

....So Boris Johnson went on holiday. See if you even notice.

Britain’s death toll, pretty much the worst per-capita in the developed world, rose again to the levels it was 2 months ago.....

.....Fortunately, the govt solved those deaths by the simple expedient of publishing the figures on a different website and not telling anybody

2/ A mere 6 months into the Covid-19 crisis, the govt advertised for a "Head of Pandemic Preparedness" with a salary of – honest to god – less than mine. And I do colouring-in for a living.

In Feb the govt said "nobody will go hungry as a result of Covid-19".......

......The FSA said 7.8 million Britons had skipped meals or eaten unsafe food as a result of skyrocketing “food insecurity” since the outbreak

So the govt is planning to stop the furlough scheme to force us to go back to jobs that don’t exist

3/ Britain’s GDP fell 21%, more than twice as much as Germany or the USA, and even more than Spain, which we keep telling ourselves is doing terribly, whilst avoiding mirrors......

......And an IFS study showed UK can expect to be permanently 9% poorer if we have no Brexit deal by Nov

So naturally, Liz Truss paused a £14bn trade deal with Japan over concerns for the fate of Stilton, which is 0.007% of the deal. But she’d made a big deal over Brexit saving Britain’s vast and vitally important Stilton industry, and everything else comes second

4/ Liz Truss suggested increasing the speed limit to 80mph could be the solution to all our economic woes.......

......And then The Express – yes, them – suddenly discovered the USA favour a deal with the EU over a deal with the UK because, and this will shock you, the EU is much bigger

5/ Boris Johnson insisted the central Test and Trace system was "still world-beating" after it traced only 56% of cases......

......Local councils set up their own tracing in Lancashire, Liverpool and W Yorkshire and traced 98%. "World-beating" isn’t even beating Blackburn council

NHS Providers said Test and Trace is “not fit for purpose, let alone world class”

6/ A month after knighting Sir Tom for raising £32m, the govt gave 10x as much to company valued at £100, and with no expertise in producing PPE, for 50m masks we can’t use......

......By one of those massively rare coincidences that happen 9 times out of 10, the owner is a close friend Liz Truss.....

......And then it was revealed the govt didn’t just sign one inexplicable contract with a useless and inexperienced supplier: they had at least 20 contracts.....

......One of the contracts is for £108m, paid to a pest control company with assets of just £18,000. The company is now using money from that contract to threaten legal action against a lawyer who asked what it is doing with the money. I kid you not.

7/ Education news, and in the beginning, the govt opposed adjusting A-level grades......

......Then top fireplace salesman and irony no-fly-zone Gavin Williamson said “The danger is that pupils will be over-promoted into jobs that are beyond their competence”.......

......And then the govt introduced a “moderating” algorithm to adjust grades......

......Then the Tories told the Scottish govt to abandon its own adjusted grades.....

......And when the Scottish govt did Tories had asked, the Tories said it was a disgrace and they should resign.....

......Then multiple Tories called for Gavin Williamson to do exactly the same thing

8/ The Assoc of Headteachers said the govt’s handling of this is "a rolling disaster"......

....Things are moving fast. But not as fast as the contents Gavin Williamson’s small intestine

The govt’s algorithm awarded twice as many grade increases to pupils from private schools as it did to state schools......

......And an Education Policy Institute report found wealthy pupils get 1/3 more funds from the "levelling up" budget as poor pupils get

9/ Scrupulous honesty news: property developers gave the Tories £11m in the last year, and then, miraculously, the Tories relaxed rules on planning permission......

......Amongst the regulations they tried to scrap was the one requiring dwellings to have at least 1 window.....

.....Robert Jenrick said "you can trust me on housing", 3 weeks after he admitted wrongdoing in helping a Tory donor avoid £45m tax......

......To be fair, he then denied admitting wrongdoing, even though he had admitted it on camera, and that's always the mark of a man you can trust

10/ The Royal Institute of British Architects said the reforms were "shameful" and would "lead to a generation of slum housing".....

......Housing charity Shelter said the reforms "will mean the end of affordable housing" and force more than 1m people onto housing waiting lists.....

......But Priti Patel said Syrian refugees were the real cause of our national housing crisis

11/ She asserted that people claiming asylum in the UK was illegal, which it absolutely is not, under any circumstances, ever.....

......Then she appointed an excitingly-titled "Clandestine Channel Threat Commander" tasked with, amongst other impossible things, pushing migrant boats back out to sea, in direct contravention of international law and British Navy regulations

A leak from inside the MoD said Patel’s plans were "completely potty", "inappropriate, impractical and unnecessary” and had "more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese". I’ll put them down as a 'maybe'.....

....Priti Patel then had an argument about this with some ice-cream

James Cleverley, a hugely successful one-man campaign against nominative determinism, joined in, but confused "virtue signalling" with "obeying the law"

12/ Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh had a solution: "We should never have lost Calais in 1558. Why not take it back?".....

......Then Sir Edward, a vocal, life-long Brexit fan, said we should pay the EU to manage migration for us, but it has been very warm, and he does look like a man who has been in the sun far too long

13/ Speaking of Brexit, it was revealed Tate and Lyle, Tory donors and No Deal cheerleaders, will gain £73m if we get No Deal, because they can import more of the very unhealthy sugar they supply......

.....So obviously, the govt started a TV campaign telling us to stop being fat

14/ The govt condemned the Russian state, which said it had a vaccine that hasn’t been approved by regulators.....

.....And then it was revealed UK’s much-vaunted 90-minute rapid Covid test has not been approved by regulators

15/ The govt said children would be safe if we re-opened schools.....

.....And then Boris Johnson said he would "bulldoze schools" in which there were Covid outbreaks, which seems a smidge excessive if Covid can’t spread in schools....

.....The govt said there was no evidence any children had caught Covid in school. Schools are closed, so it would be difficult right now, but let’s not try to apply logic any more

16/ An international study found pupils over 12 are just as susceptible to Covid-19 as any adult......

.....Scientists called for routine testing of teachers and pupils.....

.....The Schools Minister said no because, I’m sorry, I have no idea why the Schools Minister said no, and neither does he. People asked. He didn’t have an answer.

17/ And then Immigration minister Chris Philp asked if he could re-record a live interview, after he forgot what country he was from

Shouldn't you give a nod to the twitter account you have taken this from rather than pass it off as your own wording ?

[joey13]

Yes I'm aware it's bigger and it's also being claimed that their numbers are under reported due to the poor state of their health system.
Interestingly people claimed our numbers were also under reported yet our health system is very good.

Care to disprove the other two points?

Not really ,can’t be bothered as you have already been brainwashed

[Grumps]

Shouldn't you give a nod to the twitter account you have taken this from rather than pass it off as your own wording ?

The amazing thing is people on here actually thought it was all his own work

[Swizzlestick]

I couldn’t give a flying if it’s his own work or not, it’s all pretty factual. Feel free to argue the points rather than posting stupid emojis.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Not really ,can’t be bothered as you have already been brainwashed

Aka you can't disprove it, hence you're now saying I've been brainwashed.

[Grumps]

I couldn’t give a flying if it’s his own work or not, it’s all pretty factual. Feel free to argue the points rather than posting stupid emojis.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

It's funny how often the (toe-curlingly embarrassing) defenders of this shambolic government use Brexit as one of the reasons why they've found it difficult to cope with other issues. As though Brexit wasn't a man-made, self-inflicted mess created by these very same Tories in government.

It's also funny how people like Sid claim the government should be given the benefit of the doubt, because it's easy to be critical in hindsight, and then spends the next few posts criticising Tony Blair's government from nearly 20 years ago.

It's an open and shut case. This is the worst government in living memory. It's not even close. The scary thing is they're only 9 months in. God knows what state we'll be in at the end of their term.

Blairs lot were given benefit of hindsight though.

They couldn't be judged for a lot of their errors until after the dust had settled down, or the truth about the sexed up dossier came to light.

Same with the global financial crash, Labour's errors didn't come to light for a while.

If you look at all of Labour's errors or lies over their term in office they're worse than this current Tory gov regardless of how you try to spin it.

The whole truth about what the Tories will undoubtedly muck up won't be about for a while yet.

[joey13]

Aka you can't disprove it, hence you're now saying I've been brainwashed.

The fact you support this complete shambles of a so-called government proves you’ve been brainwashed

[GodIsADeeJay81]

The fact you support this complete shambles of a so-called government proves you’ve been brainwashed

Big round of applause for completely ignoring the posts where I've been critical of what they've done.

Looks like just the one of us is brainwashed and I'll help you out here and give you a hint - it isn't me.

[TheFamilyCat]

Gavin Williamson was on BBC Breakfast this morning promising a "world-beating education system".

Will they ever learn?

[Darthlaw]

In fairness, Sid, for every bit 'toe curlingly embarrassing' J McG claims tory defenders to be, he often displays the same trait with his staunchly Labour biased posts. He's the type who would defend Labours debt accrual during the financial crisis but condemn tories for the debt we'll inevitably build for the furlough scheme.

Ultimately despite how bad the Tories are and have been, Labour still couldn't put up a decent opposition and continue to be behind in the polls. That says more about the state of both political parties to me.

KSR's point seems the most reasoned on here. Both Parties have their shortcomings and it's fine to disagree as to which side you fall on. As for a game of Top Trumps as to who's government is worse, surely there's grass which needs monitoring somewhere?

[JohnMac]

The Government are having to deal with the worst crisis to hit this Country possibly since WW2.

At least during WW2 most of the Country pulled in the same direction, now it's just selfish pricks and agenda driven media all trying their damndest to put the Country down.

Then there there is the 'Woe is us Generation' where nothing is fair because all the grown ups are conspiring to destroy their future.

People need to get a sense of perspective and priorities.

What times we live in...

[SalisburyClaret]

Or are they the Best Government Ever?
No other government has had to deal with a pandemic and play the guess unknown exam results game. You may not like how they've handled it but there are no comparative points to gauge their performance. You can only work on hindsight. Dragging Brexit into this is plain stupid.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

They have had it tough no wonder Boris has needed to take another holiday.

[Quickenthetempo]

Yes but its okay, because we have a government that 5 years ago promised to build 200,000 new houses to help this issue. That first house should be coming along anytime soon now...

Are you saying new houses haven't been built or the government themselves haven't built them?

Were you expecting Theresa May and Boris on the trowel?

[evensteadiereddie]

They may as well have because there aren't, and never will be, enough construction workers to build an extra 200, 000 new houses.
Pre-pandemic, the figure was round about 180,000 new houses built per year. Even splitting the boast of an extra 200,000 houses over a ten year period, ie 20,000 per year, given the lack of decent joiners, plasterers and so on, that would have been pushing it. As they found out.

[FactualFrank]

BREAKING: Gavin Williamson downgraded from A*** to C***.

[martin_p]

Are you saying new houses haven't been built or the government themselves haven't built them?

Were you expecting Theresa May and Boris on the trowel?

The specific point is, I think, that the government promise to build 200,000 new starter homes by 2020 aimed at the under 40s hasn’t materialised at all. It needed specific funding which was never forthcoming.

[Bordeauxclaret]

The Government are having to deal with the worst crisis to hit this Country possibly since WW2.

At least during WW2 most of the Country pulled in the same direction, now it's just selfish pricks and agenda driven media all trying their damndest to put the Country down.

Then there there is the 'Woe is us Generation' where nothing is fair because all the grown ups are conspiring to destroy their future.

People need to get a sense of perspective and priorities.

What times we live in...

That nostalgic post would have played much better if they hadn’t spent the last week ******* up the future of a large proportion of the younger generation.

Also well done to those people who knew this wasn’t fair and forced yet another u-turn.

[TVC15]

Are you saying new houses haven't been built or the government themselves haven't built them?

Were you expecting Theresa May and Boris on the trowel?

Watch this and then maybe apologise for your daft ill informed comment

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07vqbxr

[AndrewJB]

I know it won't change anyone's mind in the slightest but according to a guest on the BBC politics show tonight it was OFQUAUL that has reversed the decision because they hadn't got the capacity for the expected appeals process.

Not the Government

That’s interesting. The government repeatedly said there would be no change. Perhaps Johnson and Williamson didn’t realise it wasn’t their decision to make?

I wonder who was in charge of creating the algorithm?

[RingoMcCartney]

It could have been worse .

If labour had been elected last December, theyd have the very same unprecedented pandemic to deal with.

The very same medical experts to take advice from.

The very same Incompetent Public Health England to be let down by.

Plus in a Corbyn government, we'd be looking forward to having Keir Starmer negotiating a deal with his chums in Brussels, Then returning to campaign against his own deal in a forthcoming 2 EU referendum !!

Swerved a bullet their ladies and gents.

[martin_p]

That’s interesting. The government repeatedly said there would be no change.

Williamson gave a ‘cast iron guarantee’ there’d be no u-turn as recently as Thursday.

[ksrclaret]

That’s interesting. The government repeatedly said there would be no change. Perhaps Johnson and Williamson didn’t realise it wasn’t their decision to make?

I wonder who was in charge of creating the algorithm?

Our college sought urgent clarification from the DfE on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning about the lowering of A Level grades. We were told categorically that there would not be a u-turn to awarding CAGs as we'd seen in Scotland. Instead, students could appeal if their mock exam result was higher than their final grade (let's not get into how unfair that would have been given the process for taking mocks is highly variable between institutions).

On Sunday we were then told that students could no longer appeal on that basis.

On Monday we were told that there had been a u-turn and every student would receive their CAG.

Meanwhile, Williamson refers to it as all being the "algorithm's" fault as though the algorithm is some sort of natural phenomena that has had to be worked around. The language of the guilty.

[Quickenthetempo]

Watch this and then maybe apologise for your daft ill informed comment

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07vqbxr

Sorry I didn't think he meant Government subsidised homes. Which I'm glad aren't getting built. Pay the price or start at the bottom like everyone else.

There's plenty of homes getting built, plenty of housing estates getting fought against by local residents.

[Grumps]

Sorry I didn't think he meant Government subsidised homes. Which I'm glad aren't getting built. Pay the price or start at the bottom like everyone else.

There's plenty of homes getting built, plenty of housing estates getting fought against by local residents.

Too many bloomin houses being built round us, without the infrastructure to support.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

It could have been worse .

If labour had been elected last December, theyd have the very same unprecedented pandemic to deal with.

The very same medical experts to take advice from.

The very same Incompetent Public Health England to be let down by.

Plus in a Corbyn government, we'd be looking forward to having Keir Starmer negotiating a deal with his chums in Brussels, Then returning to campaign against his own deal in a forthcoming 2 EU referendum !!

Swerved a bullet their ladies and gents.

It didn’t happen though. It’s like worrying what life as a Burnley fan would have been liked had we reappointed Brian Laws instead of Dyche.

[TVC15]

Sorry I didn't think he meant Government subsidised homes. Which I'm glad aren't getting built. Pay the price or start at the bottom like everyone else.

There's plenty of homes getting built, plenty of housing estates getting fought against by local residents.

Yep leave them on the street where they belong eh ?

I have worked in property development for the last 5 years and the types of homes that are getting built by big developers do not solve the housing crisis - it simply pushes up prices overall and makes it even harder for people to get on the ladder.
Often big developers will buy land and deliberately sit on this and not build houses - so that they can manipulate local house prices accordingly. The laws need to be changed to stop this.

But none of this deals with the point of social housing and the government’s failure to do what they promised and build 200,000 new houses. They built zero....which even for them is a different level of incompetence

[Quickenthetempo]

Too many bloomin houses being built round us, without the infrastructure to support.

Exactly.

[Quickenthetempo]

Yep leave them on the street where they belong eh ?

I have worked in property development for the last 5 years and the types of homes that are getting built by big developers do not solve the housing crisis - it simply pushes up prices overall and makes it even harder for people to get on the ladder.
Often big developers will buy land and deliberately sit on this and not build houses - so that they can manipulate local house prices accordingly. The laws need to be changed to stop this.

But none of this deals with the point of social housing and the government’s failure to do what they promised and build 200,000 new houses. They built zero....which even for them is a different level of incompetence

There is no housing crisis.

There's 1000s of empty houses in Burnley and surrounding areas alone.

Why shouldn't building firms be able to make as much profit as they can? Do expect them to make a loss? Build houses as a favour?

[RingoMcCartney]

It didn’t happen though. It’s like worrying what life as a Burnley fan would have been liked had we reappointed Brian Laws instead of Dyche.

What part of "swerved a bullet" ......

[JohnMac]

That nostalgic post would have played much better if they hadn’t spent the last week ******* up the future of a large proportion of the younger generation.

Also well done to those people who knew this wasn’t fair and forced yet another u-turn.

I understand the anguish but I have yet to hear 'I will prove you wrong and sit the exams and prove to everyone what grade I have earned'

I did hear prior to any results 'They can't go off our mock results, nobody takes them seriously'.

Who is to blame for that chestnut?

Allowing Teachers to grade pupils maybe a good idea but only as long as it is justified by checking the evidence of past work which may include mock exam grades.

Maybe Universities should set entrance tests, perhaps adapt to what is happening globally and make allowances for the pandemic.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

What part of "swerved a bullet" ......

Using things things that didn’t happen as an excuse for sheer incompetence and ineptitude........

[claretandy]

I see that the Welsh labour government has been given a free pass.

[ksrclaret]

I see that the Welsh labour government has been given a free pass.

Possibly, but I've yet to have a look on the Cardiff or Swansea message board to find out if that's true.

[Swizzlestick]

Almost as if we’re not in Wales.

I see Zanu PF have been given a free pass.

[TVC15]

There is no housing crisis.

There's 1000s of empty houses in Burnley and surrounding areas alone.

Why shouldn't building firms be able to make as much profit as they can? Do expect them to make a loss? Build houses as a favour?

“1000s of empty houses in Burnley” - really ? You got a link for that ?
And would you live in some of the houses I presume you are referring to ? Boarded up streets, drug dens...no money to bring them up to habitable standards.

As for the situation regarding developers it’s a lot more complicated than that but doesn’t matter what I say it won’t change your views so I’ll save myself some time.