Should I vote Labour Mark 11

I agree Maisie and Jen. Expansion of jobs so that people move to the areas in the north of England that had there industries destroyed would be more sensible along side a carefully worked out housing policy.

It seems so obvious

arrrh their!!!

All Jones's count in Wales , expect Jen is frantically googling now. I think someone with a naughty sense of humour was behind that letter . I must make a phone call

Don't need to, Annie. You know you are being pathetic.
Get a life.

best you have a lie down Jen

Our plumber is a Jones - his middle name is Goldust because that is what good plumbers are like.

oops X post, is that cleanish?

He's the one who keeps our taps running so he probably is very cleanish

annie, I was only joking about wanting proof!!! It was said with tongue well in cheek!! I didn't mean to annoy you.

Niggly I know, my reply when I spoke of proof was in reply to
Jen, I thought the Jones posts were funny and heaven knows humour is in short supply on political threads ? X

Why not stop farming in some areas, where it's not profitable and the land could be put to another purpose?
Probably some of it could be sold off for housing, yes, but my view is that we should be producing more home-grown food rather than importing more as the population grows. Farmers should be paid a price (perhaps subsidised as foreign farmers are) which enables them to make a profit, not a loss, employ workers who could rent this low-cost housing which has been built on a field which is not good for agriculture and we become more self-sufficient.

Crops can be grown on set-aside land at present as long as they are not food crops.

Pause for thought........ Can you think of examples in other industries in the UK where owners of a resource are paid either not to use the resource, or to manage it in a specific manner?

Rather than import as we now do we may need to produce more food in the UK.

annie, they made me smile too! As you say the threads do get a bit heavy and it is nice to lighten up very occasionally!!

So you honestly think, Ana, that the Labour Party has someone tucked away in a back room dutifully photoshopping all pictures of Corbyn's election rallies?

You mean to say that they don't??

oh, then again, perhaps you're right MaizieD!

Make farmers stop farming ? Closer to state controlled country is good? What else, close down small business if their profits do not reach an expected level ?

I agree Niggly ?

Nice to see a bit of levity on a political thread! Brightened my day no end! to all.

(perhaps subsidised as foreign farmers are)

Err, farmers are subsidised, Jalima, by the EU.

As far as I'm aware the conditions of the subsidy are that they keep their land in good heart and don't cause environmental damage with their farming practices.

Even with the subsidy many farmers struggle, mainly because we expect cheap food, an expectation encouraged by the supermarkets.

I don't know about the three crop thing; I saw it mentioned during the Brexit debate, both asserted to be restricting farmers and the assertion refuted. Can't recall details though.

But - we're coming out of the EU!

And it's going to cost us so much we won't be able to afford to continue to subsidise them!

I think a lot of just about managing small farmers (farmers of small farms, not small in stature) will give up.

And what will happen to the environmental protection in the bonfire of regulations we're promised?

And the subsidies were paid too for leaving land uncultivated for environmental purposes.

So - if this set-aside land was used for millions of houses and all the associated infrastructure, what damage would that do to the environment?

X posts

Are you talking about crop rotation, used by organic farmers in order not to deplete the land?

I don't think that set aside is party of the subsidy any longer. It was all changed a few years ago. Though I haven't checked this.

Professor Richard Murphy's take on the Labour Manifesto, with an interesting comment on housing from Simon Cohen

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/05/15/on-labours-missing-big-idea-which-i-hope-is-on-its-way/

From an elderly website about EU farm subsidy

Following the recent mid term review (2005), set-aside became part of the new Single Farm Payment with a rate of 8%. However in 2008 the rate was set at 0% - it is thought that the set-aside measure will be abolished sometime in the future.

www.ecifm.rdg.ac.uk/setaside.htm

Crop rotation is/was standard farming practice, dj. Quite different from set aside. It used to include a period when the fields were left fallow for a season (usually grazed by livestock to manure the land) but I don't think it would today. In fact, I think it went out of favour in the early 19th C. Turnip Townsend and all that! ('O' Level history)