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These guys have a very strange set of political beliefs. You need to have a peculiar and narrow definition of freedom to reach this conclusion:

the neoreactionary movement, whose adherents believe — as Thiel wrote in 2009 — that freedom and democracy are incompatible and that democratic governments and bloated federal bureaucracies should be replaced by enlightened autocratic regimes

Presumably Thiel thinks he, or another of his ilk, would be the enlightened supreme leader…

The order bans him from being in possession of any tools that can be used in theft or burglary, including but not limited to Allen keys […]

How’s the poor guy going to put together his ikea furniture now?!

That looks delicious!

I always quite liked the 'slap and fold' method. A bit more involved than not kneading at all, but it's quite fun and the resulting gluten structure tends to be really tight and elastic.

I'd imagine you'd need to work the dough a little more for ancient grains with low gluten?

Great, thanks!

Just been browsing their entire collection of stuff and there are some bargains on there — sets of 4 clamps for £40, set of 3 hand saws for £20, set of 8 chisels for £30…

Trying to put an order list together and keep getting distracted

Are tools any good from Rutlands?
I’m looking at various pocket hole and dowel jigs, and they’re all actually made of metal, which seems unusual for the price.

E.g. https://www.rutlands.com/products/pocket-hole-jig-portable

My reading of it is that most industries that would be most likely be able to move to exploitative zero hour modes already have or are already on that trajectory.

This is a good argument. It would be interesting to see how many remaining jobs there are on proper employment contracts that would be compatible with zero hours contracts. I'd be very surprised if there were none whatsoever.

To state otherwise seems naive.

All I've said is that that some businesses may move to zero-hours contracts, and that's a risk. That's hardly a categorical statement, and given the direction of employment contracts in the last few decades it's fairly warranted. You've already mentioned sharks taking advantage of it, so in your own words there's clearly potential for some businesses to do this.

Any point claiming that businesses will be using zero hours as some sort of stick to beat the labour market back with

That's also not what I said?

It's a key bit of policy for Starmer's Labour. They said they will regulate that option out of existence (if they dont back out or water it down. Who knows)

Well that was my entire point, that I hope it will be resolved in the employment rights bill.

Maybe it is, but it’s hardly a progressive pro-growth policy in the interests of working people, which is what I was trying to get at.

I’m really hoping the employment rights bill will sort this all out, but we’ll see I suppose.

So if they have fewer than 5 employees (on median salaries), it'll be a net benefit — also not great (is that right?)

I just don't see what they were thinking here beyond fixing the balance sheet.

They don't need to restructure, they just need to put together a different contract for new hires — they won't be able to flip this into an immediate decrease in wages and change of contracts for current employees, the effect will be over time. I mean, you can find templates for zero-hours contracts online, thousands of small businesses do this, so it's not exactly complicated.

It's a huge and expensive risk to become uncompetitive as an employer to your current and prospective labour force

Don't make me laugh. The wage/profit share of GDP has been shrinking for longer than I've lived, and competition didn't seem to do much about that. If you're talking about middle class salaried desk jobs in major cities you might have a point — they'll not be the ones transitioning to zero-hours contracts. Those companies' wage bills will still go up though, and they'll be looking at how to cover it by tightening belts.

Edit: sorry, didn't see your edit —

Class A at Median 34k wages is £3,436.74 PA for 2024/25

The new minimum threshold is 5k, rather than 9.1k, so the calculation will be:
(34000-5000)*0.15 = £4,350 (per year, but remember this is also per employee)

my feeling is generally they were nowhere near brave enough with this budget

it's clear businesses can and should swallow this hike

businesses have generally been able to grow profits or engage in pretty brazen profiteering

I agree with all of that, I'm just framing it as a risk, which you seem to agree with at least on the micro scale. Personally, I can't see a force stopping companies passing this through to wages or reductions in employment security to at least some extent, maybe over time as they deal with staff turnover or new hires. The risk of not sorting this out in the employment rights bill is pretty large.

I'm not sure a faith in labour market dynamics is going to save anyone here either. After all, the last time we had a tight labour market (i.e. good for wages), the macroeconomic response was to increase interest rates to trigger a reduction in wage growth.

The Resolution Foundation report is here btw:
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2024/10/More-more-more-Budget-2024.pdf

Not read the RF report, but there's also the underlying reality of rising housing costs in addition to stagnating wages over the next decade — see modelling from the JRF here: https://x.com/alfie_stirling/status/1851686979693425131

Would be curious to know if there are proposals, as I wonder what a goverment can realistically do to increase wages.

I'd imagine they're hanging their hat on the minimum wage increase, planning reform, and the upcoming employment rights bill to take up some of the slack. Honestly though, the employer national insurance increase was just a bad idea — it'll likely put downward pressure on wages in the long term, since it's a tax on turnover rather than profit.

The NI increase may even kickstart companies moving people from more secure salaries into the gig economy, so I hope Labour are still pushing the merger between employee and worker status to make sure this doesn't happen.

Is this actually symptomatic of a system of a market that has driven efficiencies of returns for shareholders while not creating a sufficient number of new high paying jobs?

Without doubt, sadly.

if renting was cheaper so that I could put money into savings and invest my deposit rather than sinking it into a house Idk if it would be an obvious choice

Yeah, if we could get there the choice wouldn't be so obvious, which would be a great position to be in! Those that want to fuck around with kitchens and whatnot can, and those who really couldn't care less have a perfectly reasonable alternative where someone else manages it, without a financial downside. Doubtful that this will apply to the private rental sector any time soon though.

I think you're underestimating the stamp you can put on a place.

Yeah, a little for dramatic effect I guess. We've improved places we've lived as much as we can, painted neutral colours, fixed walls/doors/trims/etc. More from a position of wanting to live in a nice place (despite paying through the nose, the places were still pretty rough). You still get the feeling that you're just making the place nicer so they can rinse you next year though.

Anyway, that stuff was more my personal take, although I wouldn't be surprised if the 2010s trends of minimalist possessions or places filled with houseplants at least partially come out of that transience or inability to change your local environment.

It's pretty fucked everywhere 😔

But always remember, the centre of gravity among SW1 political hacks — wherever they work, including in places like the Telegraph — is to the left of Blair

His understanding of the political spectrum is pretty weird. The kinds of middling pundits he's talking about clearly aren't left wing, they're very much in the image of Blair in a sort of technocratic managerial capitalist with democratic vibes kind of way.

The median lobby hack/pundit sees Labour fixing appointments as ‘grownup government’

And from that analysis, this sort of behaviour was expected and obvious for all to see

[...] but Tories doing it as ‘fascism’.

If he's concerned that he or his party are being called fascists, maybe he should stop referring to people as sub-human NPCs

As far as I remember, the average(!) deposit for first time buyers in London was about £150k last year. It's just not a realistic prospect for even well-off working people without inheritances.

However, that would also mean paying 50-100% p/m on accommodation, with no more than a year's security at a time.

Not just that, but sacrificing a level of agency and control over your own environment, like the ability to plant things in the garden and see it grow, or express yourself with decoration. To be actively engaged in material stuff where your actions have a physical and aesthetic/cultural/emotional effect I think is so important, and I can't see how being forced into a transient and limited existence without it is good for the soul.

That you're often expected to undo your creative work at the end of the tenancy, so it's as if you never existed at all, is just depressing. We're meant to live in these places, not just exist!

Anyway, enough rambling, here's a chart for who wants to be an owner-occupier in 2 and 10 years.

This is worth a read too, if anyone's interested in the demand-side drivers of housing inflation:
https://x.com/jryancollins/status/1844700553596559617

Mortgage market liberalisation saw lending increase from 20% of GDP to 80% by 2006, the vast majority of which went in to the purchase of existing homes. There is no feasible increase in supply that could have absorbed such a flood of credit.

The introduction of Buy-to-Let mortgages in the late 1990s, following earlier liberalisation of the PRS, ramped up investment demand further. Banks will always prefer low-risk borrowers so those who already have collataral (existing homes) will outcompete first timer buyers.

Report here:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/sites/bartlett_public_purpose/files/241009_iipp_policy_report_ukhousing_layout2.pdf

I don’t think it’s landlords that have been increasing purchase prices of late.

They represent about 10–15% of purchases every year, so if you believe that additional demand pushes up prices, then the counterfactual where they are removed from the demand pool would lead directly to reduced prices. There are other factors adding to the asset value of housing, but it's not as if you can dismiss it as at least one of the causes.

If their absence slows down or reduces house prices, that’s might be good news for first time buyers only.

It's mostly irrelevant for people who only own their own home. Since there's a general movement up/down, the place they move to will have changed price in the same direction as the one they've moved from. It also helps anyone sizing up, since the gap between bands is proportionally smaller.

The current homeowners who might see their house prices slashed, and former first time buyers who bought new builds in the past couple of years who will soon be in negative equity might not be so thrilled.

It would be between 1–5% of owner occupiers (depending on age, see below) who would go into negative equity if prices reduce by 9%, which would be the largest fall since 2008. Not great for those people, I'll grant you that, but the fixes are relatively easy — target a nominal housing inflation figure of between around -2% and 0%.

Is this a rare golf club x tofu eating guardian reader collab?

Partially founded by a Robert Robertson, no less

It isn't practical or desirable for everyone to be home owners all the time.

For what it's worth, I think there's room for reform in the purchase market too. Ideally you'd make it as easy as possible to move at relatively short notices, reaping some of the wider economic benefit of the 'flexible labour market' that usually underpins arguments for private rental provision.

a supply of decent, secure, affordable rental properties is a good thing. the argument is about who should provide it and how.

Yep, totally agree. Our current arrangement is batshit, so any movement toward social/co-op provision and stronger protections in the private market would be a step in the right direction.

all landlords essentially being a pox on society

Yeah I don't believe that, sorry for jumping on you!

I find there's usually a lack of distinction between the actual job part of being a landlord (managing and renovating the building), which is totally fine, and the ultimately feudal nature baked into the landlord-tenant relationship as a result of housing being a speculative financial asset.

I don't see why we can't deal with them separately, hence housing co-ops being a good option for management, or allowing small increases in rent proportional to the actual costs associated with running a building.