This time next year, President Trump moves back into the Whitehouse...

[Cousin Jack]

Some of these p, eople have multiple home is multiple countries. One not far away recently sold for £2.25M and prior to that had been used for about 3 weeks in about 5 years.

Isn't the majority of the problem not a handful of multimillionaires on their jollies and more thousands of local entrepreneurs taking advantage by offering places out as AirBnBs?

I have a second home in name only because I couldn't make my mind up where I wanted to live. I certainly can't afford to leave it empty. If I could be arsed I'd AirBnB one of them I suppose and make a decent wedge more.
I think the Fronch think us furriners are nuts - buying up their old, cold, wrecked and bijou houses.

It's a mix. Within 2 miles of me one street is millionaire row, every smaller place for sale gets razed and a mandsion put up in its place. Building plots going for £750k.
More locally in the vilage a new development of 10 houses were 2 just under £1m, and 8 just over.

[Horse]

What's your workable solution to the problem then?

All joking aside, I can only see devolution giving enough local control to solve a local problem..

What would that control allow?

... And what would be the unintended consequences?

Currently, main sources of income are agriculture, tourism and fishing. None of those are really going to produce sufficient funding to develop manufacturing, etc industries.

And although you say that tourism and second home owners don't bring regular income, the property purchase money had to come over the river at one time.

eg I mentioned my sister-in-law. They bought from a local who'd converted a barn (it was a holiday let for several years before they bought). They've put money into the local economy for work on the place, paid council tax, etc. So money imported.

How could a new government restrict property sales and rental only to holidaymakers? Hardly a vote winner.

Still, you could join the EU to make it much easier for the fishing and agriculture industries to export to mainland Europe

[DefTrap]

I thought all of us wealthy country types were just sat at home making artisanal frou-frou tat to flog to sad city types on Etsy?

[Cousin Jack]

What's your workable solution to the problem then?

All joking aside, I can only see devolution giving enough local control to solve a local problem..

What would that control allow?

... And what would be the unintended consequences?

Currently, main sources of income are agriculture, tourism and fishing. None of those are really going to produce sufficient funding to develop manufacturing, etc industries.

And although you say that tourism and second home owners don't bring regular income, the property purchase money had to come over the river at one time.

eg I mentioned my sister-in-law. They bought from a local who'd converted a barn (it was a holiday let for several years before they bought). They've put money into the local economy for work on the place, paid council tax, etc. So money imported.
several yearHow could a new government restrict property sales and rental only to holidaymakers? Hardly a vote winner.

Still, you could join the EU to make it much easier for the fishing and agriculture industries to export to mainland Europe

Devolution would allow LOCAL planning rules, so that millionaires could not build mansions on plots which usefully take 10 or 20 affordable homes. We could actually control housebuilding and insist that the right sort of properties are built. And stop the current zero Business Rate option for holiday lets, and the stupid arangement of letting people backdate that and claim back several years of Council Tax whilst avoiding the 200% CT on second home/holiday lets. We could set a realistic bedroom tax on hotels/guest houses/holiday lets so that all visitors would contribute more, even those who bring their food and drink with them. We could even charge a toll for crossing the Tamar.

We could of course be stupid and set draconian rules, frighten off all tourism, and go bust rapidly, but we (at least most of us) aren't THAT stupid.

We would of course tear up the fishing rules, and let OUR small day boats have exclusive access to our fish. At the moment most boats fishing inside the 12 mile limt arre foreign, ours are tied up in harbour and not allowed to fish. The EU won't like it, but they won't like not eating our fish either, and a sensible compromise will emerge in place of the current situation were we were sold out by Wesminster who DGAS about somewhere 250 miles away.

[Count Steer]

What's your workable solution to the problem then?

All joking aside, I can only see devolution giving enough local control to solve a local problem..

What would that control allow?

... And what would be the unintended consequences?

Currently, main sources of income are agriculture, tourism and fishing. None of those are really going to produce sufficient funding to develop manufacturing, etc industries.

And although you say that tourism and second home owners don't bring regular income, the property purchase money had to come over the river at one time.

eg I mentioned my sister-in-law. They bought from a local who'd converted a barn (it was a holiday let for several years before they bought). They've put money into the local economy for work on the place, paid council tax, etc. So money imported.

How could a new government restrict property sales and rental only to holidaymakers? Hardly a vote winner.

Still, you could join the EU to make it much easier for the fishing and agriculture industries to export to mainland Europe

Worth a thread all of its own. How do you revitalise a place that isn't well connected to anywhere where the mining (tin) has gone, the main GDP driver is an industry that has been mechanised (farming) and depended on cheap labour anyway, fishing was always family scale and all people want is cod and haddock, the medical services are stretched to breaking point by the older generation that retire there for the warmth and has a history of being a favourite place for artists and crafts people - most of which are cottage industries creating stuff to sell to tourists?

Oh, it's (relatively) sunny and the returning locals, having made their fortune elsewhere want to burn your house down.

Tricky one.

Oh...and instead of £100M pa from the EU it now gets £40M pa from the UK government 'Shared Prosperity' fund.

[mangocrazy]

I seem to recall reading that ancient tin mines might be worth re-opening, and that Cornwall is sitting on a tidy amount of lithium and other rare-earth metals. Industry might just make a comeback in sleepy, arty Cornwall...

[Cousin Jack]

I seem to recall reading that ancient tin mines might be worth re-opening, and that Cornwall is sitting on a tidy amount of lithium and other rare-earth metals. Industry might just make a comeback in sleepy, arty Cornwall...

South Crofty is being dewatered as we speak (it will take about 2 years). Several lithium projects are running, one is fairly significant scale. Other minerals (copper, tungsten, uranium, silver, gold)) have been mined economically in the past, and may be again.
We were also the birthplace of mechanical engineering, with most early steam engines being designed and built in Cornwall. That will not return, but other industries may. We are not all arty types, Trevithick and Davy were Cornish.

[Count Steer]

Cornish Lithium aims to increase its 70-strong workforce to more than 300 people once it is in commercial production.

British Lithium has agreed to start a joint venture with Paris-listed Imerys that aims to extract 20,000 tonnes of lithium ore, the companies said on Thursday.

The project is expected to employ 300 people and would produce enough lithium for 500,000 electric cars per year by the end of the decade. If it proceeds, it would require £575m in spending, according to a person close to the project.

So, 600 jobs, maybe...in mining. One of the companies seems to be walking a financial tightrope. It's not exactly the stuff the foundations of a mighty independent mini-nation are built on is it? Should buy a few cans of paraffin though.

[Taipan]

Its not unique to Cornwall though, or the UK come to that, hence all teh anti-tourism actions in Spain and Greece etc. Here locals have been driven out of a lot of cities due to (overseas) property investors. In London its lead to the gentrification of formerly quite run down areas like shoreditch and stepney and locals are forced further and further out.

[Horse]

I seem to recall reading that ancient tin mines might be worth re-opening, and that Cornwall is sitting on a tidy amount of lithium and other rare-earth metals. Industry might just make a comeback in sleepy, arty Cornwall...

With the renowned Cornish response time ("'manyana' without the sense of urgency"), the battery industry will have moved on to chalk by the time they get the mines open ...

And serious point is that it would only employ a handful of people, largely doing low pay work. The price charged would have to be competitive, so no chance of profiteering.

Edit
CS has for more detail. And would it need HS3 to export it to the mainland? Or construction of a deep water harbour and transport infrastructure?

[Cousin Jack]

.................. Or construction of a deep water harbour and transport infrastructure?

Deep water harbour? Available, at Fowey, next door to St Austell and owned by Imerys. With all the associated infrastructure for handling bulk cargo.

[Count Steer]

Its not unique to Cornwall though, or the UK come to that, hence all teh anti-tourism actions in Spain and Greece etc. Here locals have been driven out of a lot of cities due to (overseas) property investors. In London its lead to the gentrification of formerly quite run down areas like shoreditch and stepney and locals are forced further and further out.

The East End has been a constant cycle of one lot of incomers replacing the previous lot, now, instead of weavers etc it's just people in other trades...just better paid ones. 'Cockney' is a melange of Yiddish, Romani and costermonger. It's always been a melting pot. Now it's just (in parts) a wealthier one as jobs have changed.

Another major theme of East End history has been migration, both inward and outward. The area had a strong pull on the rural poor from other parts of England, and attracted waves of migration from further afield, notably Huguenot refugees, Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews, and, in the 20th century, Bengalis.

It's a problem though, sure enough, now that the cheap labour that people want to employ in London has to live further out and get the double whammy of the travel costs. You only have to get an early morning tube to see the cleaners and security bods heading back out to the far reaches of the tube lines. Same applies to lots of key workers like nurses too, they get hit with travel costs if they have to live miles out too. Sooner or later something has to give. Maybe someone should build some affordable housing, or even council houses/flats...and not be forced to sell them?

[Cousin Jack]

It's a problem though, sure enough, now that the cheap labour that people want to employ in London has to live further out and get the double whammy of the travel costs. You only have to get an early morning tube to see the cleaners and security bods heading back out to the far reaches of the tube lines. Same applies to lots of key workers like nurses too, they get hit with travel costs if they have to live miles out too. Sooner or later something has to give. Maybe someone should build some affordable housing, or even council houses/flats...and not be forced to sell them?

Similar problems in Cornwall, Devon and probably other places too. Cant afford to live near the job, only difference in rural areas is that public transport just doesn't exist. Building social housing for rent, and not allowing tenants to buy it, would be a logical step. Far too logical for the last Government, perhaps this one will do better.

[Yorick]

It's a problem though, sure enough, now that the cheap labour that people want to employ in London has to live further out and get the double whammy of the travel costs. You only have to get an early morning tube to see the cleaners and security bods heading back out to the far reaches of the tube lines. Same applies to lots of key workers like nurses too, they get hit with travel costs if they have to live miles out too. Sooner or later something has to give. Maybe someone should build some affordable housing, or even council houses/flats...and not be forced to sell them?

Similar problems in Cornwall, Devon and probably other places too. Cant afford to live near the job, only difference in rural areas is that public transport just doesn't exist. Building social housing for rent, and not allowing tenants to buy it, would be a logical step. Far too logical for the last Government, perhaps this one will do better.

Over here a new law says that you can't holiday let a property until you've owned it 5 years.

Trying to make places available to locals.

[Cousin Jack]

Over here a new law says that you can't holiday let a property until you've owned it 5 years.

Trying to make places available to locals.

Not a bad idea. I shall suggest it to the new Cornish PM when we get devolution.

o

[Buckaroo]

Here we go again!!!

What do you really, and I mean, really think of Trump?


Bloody thread keeps getting derailed

[Taipan]

Here we go again!!!

What do you really, and I mean, really think of Trump?


Bloody thread keeps getting derailed

Mega rich, done all he can in business and now just wants the ultimate prize of being President again. There is nothing else on his horizon imo and I do believe he genuinely does want to make America great again. The problem is, he is a (ruthless) businessman and will always be at odds with politicians and the political machine as they are entirely different animals.

The political machine is corrupt in its operation and little more than a nest featherer for its members on all sides, the ultimate old boys network if you will. Trump disrupts this and I have no doubt that none of the parties want him there with his approach and its in neither the republicans or the democrats interests in him achieving office.

Why do I think Trump has even achieved office? Mainly because he represents the American dream of wealth of success and people relate to him more than the constant failings of political govts. I'm not even sure its Trump himself that wins this, you could probably sub him with Buffett or Musk for the same effect.

[ZRX61]

Harris did an interview on MSDNC yesterday & is such a moron that she threw herself under the bus without realizing it. oh, & she learned a new word: "holistic"

[Count Steer]

Why do I think Trump has even achieved office? Mainly because he represents the American dream of wealth of success and people relate to him more than the constant failings of political govts. I'm not even sure its Trump himself that wins this, you could probably sub him with Buffett or Musk for the same effect.

Warren Buffett is nearly the right age for the job.

[DefTrap]

Mega rich, done all he can in business and now just wants the ultimate prize of being President again. There is nothing else on his horizon imo and I do believe he genuinely does want to make America great again. The problem is, he is a (ruthless) businessman and will always be at odds with politicians and the political machine as they are entirely different animals.

The political machine is corrupt in its operation and little more than a nest featherer for its members on all sides, the ultimate old boys network if you will. Trump disrupts this and I have no doubt that none of the parties want him there with his approach and its in neither the republicans or the democrats interests in him achieving office.

Why do I think Trump has even achieved office? Mainly because he represents the American dream of wealth of success and people relate to him more than the constant failings of political govts. I'm not even sure its Trump himself that wins this, you could probably sub him with Buffett or Musk for the same effect.

Sure. Ideal for low rent, faux peril, crap TV like The Apprentice - nothing else. FFS don't conflate that with national / global leadership skills.