In The Guardian

Even the Tories’ political education department had no real objection to the further reduction of the tiny private rented sector that existed in the 1970s. It wrote: “The accelerating decline of the privately rented sector is quite irreversible. The private landlord, as he exists now and has existed, will, within a generation, be almost as extinct as the dinosaur. There is nothing that can be done about this.” Conservatives in the 1970s merely sought to retain a handful of petty landlords, who ought to be entitled to a “fair return” if they let out a spare room or two, but they recognised that private renting tends to be an expensive, poor-quality and economically wasteful way of accommodating the population. The near-death of landlordism was one of the good news stories of the last century.

But the task that Thatcher and her successors set themselves was to undo that progress. The present system was designed, as the supreme court noted in a tenant’s 2016 human rights challenge, to ensure that “the letting of private property will again become an economic proposition”. It should have been obvious to everyone that a market that had achieved such positive effects by its collapse would produce equal and opposite consequences as it was reinflated.

[…]

The yimby argument has always seemed flimsy. Its strange logic is that speculative developers would build homes in order to devalue them: that they would somehow act against their own interests by producing enough surplus homes to bring down the average price of land and housing. That would be surprisingly philanthropic behaviour.

When we complain, rightly, that cities such as Vienna are so much more livable than anywhere in Britain, we must acknowledge that landlordism is holding us back. Our insistence on pursuing policies that ensure that letting private property is an “economic proposition” not only drives up prices for would-be homeowners, but it stands in direct opposition to a programme of municipalising and decommodifying the homes that already exist. It also inflates land values, making new state-led building projects unfeasible. If we want a Viennese-style existence we can only achieve this, as we did 50 years ago, by driving the landlords out. Which is only fair: we have given them a very good innings.

Ocean waves crashing on the world’s shores emit more PFAS into the air than the world’s industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.

The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, spraying aerosols into the air. It found sea spray levels were hundreds of thousands times higher than levels in the water.

The contaminated spray likely affects groundwater, surface water, vegetation, and agricultural products near coastlines that are far from industrial sources of PFAS, said Ian Cousins, a Stockholm University researcher and the study’s lead author.

[…] 

He said that the results showed how the chemicals are powerful surfactants that concentrate on the surface of water, which helps explain why they move from the ocean to the air and atmosphere.

“We thought PFAS were going to go into the ocean and would disappear, but they cycle around and come back to land, and this could continue for a long time into the future,” he said.

The lives of detainees in Australia’s immigration detention centres are controlled by a secret rating system that is opaque and often riddled with errors, a Guardian investigation has found.

Developed by Serco, the company tasked with running Australia’s immigration detention network, the Security Risk Assessment Tool – or SRAT – is meant to determine whether someone is low, medium, high or extreme risk for factors such as escape or violence.

Detainees are also rated for an overall placement and escort risk – which may determine how they are treated while being transported, such as whether they are placed in handcuffs and where they stay inside a detention centre – but aren’t given the opportunity to challenge their rating, and typically are not even told it exists.

Immigration insiders, advocates and former detainees have told Guardian Australia the SRAT and similar algorithmic tools used in Australia’s immigration system are “abusive” and “unscientific”. Multiple government reports have found that assessments can be littered with inaccuracies – with devastating consequences.

Ministers and civil servants will be banned from talking to or funding organisations that undermine “the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy”, under a new definition of extremism criticised by the government’s terror watchdog and Muslim community groups.

Michael Gove, the communities secretary, will tell MPs on Thursday that officials should consider whether a group maintains “public confidence in government” before working with it.

Groups that will be effectively cancelled by ministers for falling foul of the new definition will be named in the coming weeks, government sources said.

There will be no appeals process if a group is labelled as extremist, it is understood, and groups will instead be expected to challenge a ministerial decision in the courts.

Chris Lermanis is a keen amateur photographer who spent his weekends in the late 1960s and early 1970s photographing around the inner Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy, Carlton and Collingwood with his Pentax SV camera and 50mm lens.

He hand-processed the black and white films at home and made prints in the bathroom or laundry, which was temporarily converted into a darkroom. During this time the houses and factories were being demolished and the new housing commission towers built.

Lermanis recently started looking at his old prints and now has a book project planned.

An official study of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) ordered by Rishi Sunak amid efforts to stop them being built has instead concluded they are generally popular and effective and the report was initially buried, the Guardian has learned.

The long-delayed review by Department for Transport (DfT) officials was commissioned by the prime minister last July, as Sunak sought to capitalise on controversy about the schemes by promising drivers he was “on their side”.

Downing Street had hoped that the study would bolster their arguments against LTNs, which are mainly installed by Labour-run councils, but it largely points the other way.

The report, which applies only to England as transport is devolved, had been scheduled for publication in January. However, after its findings emerged, government advisers asked that it be permanently shelved, the Guardian was told.

[…] 

In each of the schemes, the percentage of people backing the LTNs was between 19 points and 31 points higher than the percentage opposed. In a sign that the controversy about the schemes might be largely generated by politicians and the media, 58% of people did not even know they lived in an LTN.

Jacob Smith, from Rights and Security International, a human rights advocacy group, said: “For years, we have expressed concern about how the government’s broad concept of ‘extremism’ could be open to politicised abuses. It appears that this concern has now been realised through a blatant distinction between how the government wants to treat people on the ‘left’ versus people on the ‘right’ under Prevent.

“Our concern is only heightened by government rhetoric during the past few days that appears to be targeting British Muslims and protesters for Palestinian rights. If ‘extremism’ can mean anything the government wants it to mean, that’s a clear problem for democracy.”

Ilyas Nagdee, from Amnesty International, said: “This is yet another crackdown from the UK government to stifle freedom of expression – including political speech and activism – using the blunt instrument that is Prevent.

“Prevent is brazenly being used here to target political expression as it has long been criticised of doing. The government should not be in the business of rolling out training and guidance on what they deem acceptable or unacceptable political ideologies and forms of activism.”

While negative gearing gets all the hate, it really was John Howard who destroyed our housing market by handing out a big tax-free gift to property investors.

Prior to June 2000, if you made a capital gain (ie a profit from an investment) you discounted the profits by the level of inflation over the period of the investment before paying tax.

Then Howard (and Costello) changed it to being a straight 50% discount.

If you bought a property for $500,000 and 10 years later you’re able to sell it for $1m at a profit of $500,000, rather than pay tax on the whole $500,000, you only pay tax on $250,000. The other $250,000 is yours, tax free.

That is about as sweet as it gets.

[…]

At some point you have to admit what you’re doing has not worked. Or perhaps we need to admit that the aim all along was higher house prices.

Howard infamously said in 2003: “I don’t get people stopping me in the street and saying, ‘John you’re outrageous, under your government the value of my house has increased’.”

The tax policies he put in place worked. They ensured house prices would go up much faster than income and reduce affordability. Maybe it’s time to admit that if we keep them in place that situation will continue.

My first budget day as a trader was in 2009. There was still a Labour government back then and Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown were adamant it was time to tax bankers’ bonuses. I was a banker but a very poor, very young one. Around that time I slept on a broken mattress and used a little plastic hose from Argos to take showers while sitting in the bath.

I was worried. But I turned round to Billy, and Billy wasn’t worried. He was laughing. He was leaning back, pointing at me, and laughing. He stood up and grabbed me hard by the shoulders. “Don’t worry, Gal. They’ll never tax us,” he said.

Organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain and protest groups such as Palestine Action are among those that could be affected by the non-statutory move to block groups from funding or accessing venues if they are regarded as promoting an ideology that undermines “British values”. The plan was reported by the Observer last year.

A minister said on Tuesday that he would not be happy if, for example, gender-critical feminists were labelled as extremists by a change of government policy.

The trade minister Greg Hands told Times Radio that the prime minister had talked about taking on extremism and the government needed to work on definitions.

“The communities secretary, Michael Gove, is doing that right now. More work is being done. But obviously we need to target real extremism and not just a difference of views, honestly held views about these things,” he added.