David Cameron drops privatisation bombshell then catches a plane to Lanzarote.

Link

The government’s new Infrastructure Bill removes control for decisions to sell or develop publicly owned land from the public sector. In short, before long, a private company will have the power to sell publicly owned land for Fracking, new nuclear, or whatever else it likes – and the public say in the development of its own land will be a thing of the past.

I'm not sure what the situation regarding land is in USA, but I find this law a little troubling personally. It also seems a little hypocritical of a government that talks up 'national pride' and then seeks to pass a bill that effectively sells the country off to private companies. How much identity can a country claim to have if vast swathes of it are owned by Chinese oil companies etc?

It is also deeply un-democratic, the influence of the people who live in a country has been very gradually eroding over the last few decades; we are still allowed to protest and e-petitions can have something debated in parliament (probably the only thing likely to make any difference), but these things seem like a government allowing their population to have a feeling of influence rather than any effective power.

Guess who is exempt from the Act? The Queen, and the aristocracy. Despite being the largest landowner in the world, let alone the country, the Crown is exempt from the land grab. As will be the aristoracy who still own a third of Britain’s land.

This annoys me particularly, does one family really need to own a third of a country's land?

a reply to: twfau

They're conservatives, selling off public assets is nothing new for these pieces of excrement, Thatcher did it in the 80's, Cameron is just following on from where she left off.

Clicked on this expecting it to be the NHS or Education, thin end of the wedge though.
Wonder where the money will end up?

a reply to: twfau

Given that this bill essentially permits a great deal of our land to be sold off, I personally am glad that at least a third, that which is in the hands of the Crown, is untouchable. At least that will remain a bastion owned by British interests.

However, what is very interesting about all of this, and by interesting, I mean infuriating, aggravating, one might go as far as to say "conducive to rage induced seizures" is that the Conservative party of the U.K. is doing this, despite the fact that only 24% of eligible voters gave them their support in the last election. Yes, they had the most votes of any one party in the cycle, but I really think that if only 24% of UK citizens select something, that no matter how or why it played out that way, this cannot be said to be a mandate, strong or otherwise, for that party to move ahead with any of its plans, leave alone a plan as utterly UN-democratic and suspicious as this one.

Yet another reason to throw Cameron down a hole and fill it with high molar acid.

Ia reply to: twfau

I wonder if the British Government would have the balls to do this if they had a 2nd amendment and an armed population ready to reign it in if it ever goes full rogue.

Almost a lesson in what the government of the day is willing and able to achieve, by way of land grabbing when they need not fear an armed uprising from their population.

Maybe they should rename Great Britain to Great, we've been shafted.

a reply to: twfau

Here's a comment from the Financial Times article on privatising the Land Registry.

motinow6700
this proposal is sheer lunacy. the primary function of the Land Registry is to guarantee title to land: that is a State function for which we pay taxes.
treating its secondary purpose of then answering questions about who is registered owner, as if it was its main purpose is utterly ludicrous.
next the politicians will be trying to sell-off the DVLA and Voter registration and the High Court.
none of these are "assets" - they are government functions.
privatise them and there is no reason for citizens to pay taxes.

The article is called, 'Sale board poised to go back up on Land Registry'.

The only solution is killing everyone involved. Just kidding. Ha ha.

As I understand it there is no real private land ownership here. Compulsory purchase orders would not be possible if that was the case.

Conspiratorial rumour says David Cameron's wife is his handler.

Read all about it. This is the Bill in question...

A Bill to make provision for strategic highways companies and the funding of transport services by land; to make provision for the control of invasive non-native species; to make provision about nationally significant infrastructure projects; to make provision about town and country planning; to make provision about the Homes and Communities Agency and Mayoral development corporations; to make provision about the Greater London Authority so far as it exercises functions for the purposes of housing and regeneration; to make provision about Her Majesty’s Land Registry and local land charges; to make provision enabling building regulations to provide for off-site carbon abatement measures; to make provision for giving members of communities the right to buy stakes in local renewable electricity generation facilities; to make provision about maximising economic recovery of petroleum in the United Kingdom; to provide for a levy to be charged on holders of certain energy licences; to enable Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to exercise functions in connection with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; to make provision about onshore petroleum and geothermal energy; to make provision about renewable heat incentives; and for connected purposes.

Source Parliamnet Bills

Quite wide-ranging. There's a lot about climate change, and controlling invasive plants and animals, managing roads by scrapping the Highway's Agency, community involvement in renewables et al.

Where's the bit about selling public land for fracking. Could this be another hypothetical situation from the anti-fracking and anti-nuclear lobby? Surely not, they have no vested interest in scare stories do they?

a reply to: Sublimecraft

We have 1,338,399 legally held shotguns. www.gov.uk... certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2015

This subject is peppered with references to armed uprising.

a reply to: paraphi

My mistake, looks like the articles are slightly out of date and from one of the comments it looks like the Lib Dems blocked a few privatisation plans when the Infrastructure Bill was passed originally. So the current privatisation plans are in consultancy stage (an hour left to consult).

Land Registry: Moving Operations to the Private Sector

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: twfau

Given that this bill essentially permits a great deal of our land to be sold off, I personally am glad that at least a third, that which is in the hands of the Crown, is untouchable. At least that will remain a bastion owned by British interests.

However, what is very interesting about all of this, and by interesting, I mean infuriating, aggravating, one might go as far as to say "conducive to rage induced seizures" is that the Conservative party of the U.K. is doing this, despite the fact that only 24% of eligible voters gave them their support in the last election. Yes, they had the most votes of any one party in the cycle, but I really think that if only 24% of UK citizens select something, that no matter how or why it played out that way, this cannot be said to be a mandate, strong or otherwise, for that party to move ahead with any of its plans, leave alone a plan as utterly UN-democratic and suspicious as this one.

Yet another reason to throw Cameron down a hole and fill it with high molar acid.

During its entire tenure Labour stated their desire to basically 'grab' unused brownfield sites for housing. It was in theory quite popular unless you lived in an area that thought that building social housing on their back yard would risk lowering the cost of their own houses - can you point me to a link where you criticised Labour for their plans?

originally posted by: Sublimecraft
Ia reply to: twfau

I wonder if the British Government would have the balls to do this if they had a 2nd amendment and an armed population ready to reign it in if it ever goes full rogue.

Almost a lesson in what the government of the day is willing and able to achieve, by way of land grabbing when they need not fear an armed uprising from their population.

Maybe they should rename Great Britain to Great, we've been shafted.

I usually agree with you friend, but not this time.

The 2nd amendment is a useless POS.

It does not work.

The US has the most tyrannical Government on Earth.

Kills more innocent people than the next ten countries combined.

Nothing happens.

The citizens sit on their butts all day bemoaning those who want to dilute the 2nd.

It is diluted, has been for some time. A gun is useless if you won't draw it when required.

The one point in modern history where the 2nd should have been used was after the murder of college kids by National Guard troops.

But no, people were shocked. I have lost faith in the 2nd.

As for the British, they are following along behind the US. This is just another version of the BLM.

The one person who could and should stop this is the Queen, but she is useless as tits on a bull.

P

a reply to: uncommitted

I have been staunchly against most Labour initiatives since the Blair days. If it were not quarter to five in the morning, I could no doubt find you an example with ease. Alas, I am not of sound mind and steady hand.

Suffice to say, the whole lot can "do one".

a reply to: Sublimecraft

America is just as bad with the BLM snatching land off ranchers and farmers and bullying people to sell at far lower than what it's worth.
I watched a video on a fat bloated woman bragging at a BLM convention how they had basically swindled 2 old army veterans out of the land they owned for pennies on what it is actually worth.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: uncommitted

I have been staunchly against most Labour initiatives since the Blair days. If it were not quarter to five in the morning, I could no doubt find you an example with ease. Alas, I am not of sound mind and steady hand.

Suffice to say, the whole lot can "do one".

I do understand, I often post when with retrospect I would have been better waiting a little while. My point was, it's easy to demonise one individual when there is no balance which makes it seem like the alternatives are holier than thou. I find it tiresome when people post about Cameron for reasons that appear to be based on...

A) Conservatives are treated as friend of business, enemy of the people. If you went back 60 years plus, I would agree that the division lines could be seen as such. I no longer agree. I don't think the lines are as clear cut anymore between any of the parties - any of them.

B) Cameron is rich, educated at Eton and therefore is not in touch with 'the people'. What I find weird is that this is so often said as though getting a good education should be seen as a bad thing (apart from those with severe class envy) and that somehow makes him different from others in political life. There are notable exceptions in all parties who have had working experience outside of parliament, but actually the split isn't as noticeable as may at first be thought. Corbyn as one example is a career politician with no particular experience outside of politics, and more to the point very little experience outside of his own Islington circle, yet because he is seen as more populist at the moment for some reason that makes him more credible - all hype.

It's not that I'm particularly pro or anti Cameron, but time and again there is no balance, no looking at ingrained issues, just people displaying their own bias and treating it as fact that can be a little boring to even take part in a lot of threads.