Author: bruceandholly

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Trump!

bruceandholly
Photo by Aaron Kittredge on Pexels.com

I felt it in my bones. That Trump was going to win the 2024 presidential election. Kamala Harris seemed nice enough. But she just couldn’t get her point across. I don’t understand what she stood for. Collecting celebrity endorsements, waving your arms and going ‘Ra! Ra! Ra!, are not enough to win a presidential election. It’s about having a message that resonates. And Trump certainly had that. I really don’t want Taylor Swift telling me how to vote in a UK general election. So Britain has just got to roll with it. Something I don’t think was helped by David Lammy’s 2019 comments about Trump. Wow! That’s going to be good for business. Oh I forgot! He and Starmer had lunch with Trump. So that makes it all right.

When I wrote about Trump in my 2021 book, Write Quick. Get Published, I had no idea that he was going to make a comeback. For me, he was just a trope of a showman come politician. An entertainer. Someone who used their celebrity to propel himself into the White House. This is what I said.

“If you are writing a political thriller, wouldn’t you want to reserve a place for Donald Trump? He might be the bad boy of American politics. But he’s also a big character. He’s larger than life. Remember that before he became president, he was an entertainer. He hosted the American version of The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015. Like Reagan before him, it was his celebrity which propelled him into the White House. Pitch him against other politicians in a stand-up comedy contest and he’d win hands down. No one is asking you to like him. Of course you’d have to change the name. And not include anything which might identify the real person behind that character. You might even decide to cast your president as a female. But the core authentic personality would still be the same. “

There are also some things on which I agree with Trump. Like Trump, it irritates me the way the West has outsourced all of its jobs, manufacturing and pollution to China. Why is it that I can’t buy anything that isn’t made in China? Even the £150 jacket which I saw in Debenhams before it closed up shop. Even the Covid testing kit which I chucked in the bin. It’s as though I don’t have a choice. Several years ago, a weddings outfitter was prosecuted after pretending that wedding dresses were made in its own factory, when in fact they had a label saying that they were made in China. I’m glad I wasn’t wearing it.

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Council Gave Permission for our Neighbour to Build in our Garden

bruceandholly

Don’t worry! You won’t wake up to find a bulldozer in your garden. A grant of planning permission cannot override your property rights. In fact in planning law, land ownership and associated property rights are classed as ‘non-material considerations’, which means that your local planning committee cannot take them into account when considering the planning application.However anyone applying for planning permission is required to complete a form providing ownership details for the land in question. This is to ensure that landowners are informed of planning applications affecting their land.

As the properties are, in this case, leasehold, it is important that anyone thinking of extending their home, first looks at their lease, as there will always be restrictions on what alterations or additions can be carried our. Generally, residential leasehold ownership only extends to the interior of the flat and not to any part of the structure or exterior of the building.

It would seem to me that the only way in which a development of this type could be carried out would be if all the owners and the ground landlord clubbed together to make it happen. Not forgetting the mortgage lenders. So on balance, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

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Saturation Coverage of Celebrity Death

bruceandholly
Photo by Michelle Leman on Pexels.com

Last Wednesday I woke up to breaking news about the death of a young celebrity. It was someone I’d never heard of. Someone who had fallen from a hotel balcony. There was film footage of a young reporter holding her microphone and standing in the street amongst a group of even younger women weeping and holding candles. So I switched channels from Sky to Grood Morning Britain. Same news. Same footage. So I switched again to BBC Breakfast. Guess What! Same news. Same footage. Was there really no other news to report? Nothing from the Middle East or Ukraine? Nothing happening in the US election? In desperation, I switched to BBC Parliament and watched Prime Minister’s Questions.

Then a couple of days ago another celebrity came on the scene, complaining about the way her former partner’s death had been reported. Would she have preferred that it had gone unreported? That would have been fine by me.

housing, Law

No plans to abolish Right-to-buy

bruceandholly

Noticeably absent from recent government announcements is any proposal to abolish statutory right-to-buy. To the contrary, Angela Rayner has signaled her commitment to keep the policy, Even if some of the crazy discounts are to be scaled back. Currently, around 40% of ex-right-to-buy properties are owned by private landlords, Meaning that councils have to rent back on their own estates just to meet their statutory housing obligations. And all paid from housing benefit. That’s you and me. No wonder first-time buyers and private renters are priced out of the market. But not everyone who has exercised their right-to-buy is a winner.

It is the high-rise leaseholders who have come off worst. They are the ones facing five figure service charge bills when their local council decides to replace windows. When everyone else living in a block gets it for nothing. But something has to give if you want to rebuild social housing stock and solve Britain’s housing crisis.