Arnie Craven
@ACinWY
Formerly Conservative Candidate for Wakefield & Rothwell Constituency and for West Yorkshire Metro Mayor. One Yorkshire Devolution enthusiast. YIMBY. LUFC fan.
I note with real interest a leading story from the US this morning, where a website that demanded age / ID verification - which was claimed to be perfectly secure - has had all of its user data leaked.
Very flattered to have been asked to speak at the launch of @LFG_Leeds! Do come along and discuss what's holding us back and how to yeet it into oblivion before I'm too old to use the word "yeet" with a straight face any more.
One of the super speakers at our upcoming LFG Leeds Chapter Event, Laura Weldon @LauraRWeldon , joining us on our unremitting search for growth. Do not miss out. SIGN UP: 👉lu.ma/eq52m1wl👈
This is what so many of us have pushed for 🏡📈 Seriousness about building homes. Getting young people on the ladder. Aspiration. Growth.
Conservatives will build the homes families need, but we won’t concrete over every green field to do it.
This is painful.
'You can't even bring yourself to say that you like Zack Polanski?' @IainDale has to coax @AdrianRamsay into admitting he likes his Green Party colleague and leadership opponent.
This is insane. Utterly woefully insane. Amazingly, the project was actually on time and on budget too. And to add 274th insult to 561st injury, the whole thing was originally launched in lieu of an entire region-spanning branch of new high speed rail having being scrapped(!).
Cannot emphasise how bad this is. Our costs for electrification are dire entirely because we only do it in boom and bust bursts. If you have to train a workforce of 1000s every time you want to do a project it’s always going to lead to cost blowouts as they start from scratch!
"Tories need to remake the argument for conservatism and capitalism...and build more homes. They must also cut red tape to enable Britain to build vital infrastructure to inculcate a new generation of optimism" Very encouraging stuff from James last year 👇
NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner
16 years... not to build it but to GIVE A GREEN LIGHT. COME ON This is the same broken system that the government is refusing to overhaul from first principles. Absurd, broken, must end.
16 years ago I identified Sizewell as a site for new nuclear power. Today I am delighted that Sizewell C has finally been given the green light. We're delivering the biggest nuclear building programme in a generation 👇
🎯 "How can they know whether the skills policy needed for Rochdale is the same as it is for Reading? It's kind of bonkers." Lord O'Neill on why Whitehall can't possibly know what every local area needs. 👇
Kevin Hollinrake set to become the new Tory chairman in the Commons - the tenth in five years
Much more in favour of 20s Boris-Brick than 00s Blairwave Quay slop.
british 2000s hydrocore urbanism
This is worth reading. But @the_tpa are wrong to call for a statutory cap. We should be abolishing the cap on all councils. They are elected bodies, the control on their taxation lies with the electorate not Whitehall.
Dozens of councils, in places most will never have heard of, doubled council tax in 2024-25 That includes eleven which increased rates by 300 per cent, and one which hiked rates by *1,783 per cent* All without a referendum How is this even possible? 🧵
In September I turn 30. The same age as my dad when I was born. It’s made me think about the drop in living standards in one generation. On a fireman’s salary he could afford a 4 bed semi in a leafy part of Manchester. He had two kids (5 and new born), now almost completely…
Everyone should read this. Labour’s sell out on planning reforms could be politically useful for those of us who oppose that party, but there are bigger things at play here than party politics. People are literally dying - as this thread shows - because of the current system.
On Thursday night, we heard that government was making big concessions on its planning bill, putting lots more controls on its nature recovery plans. I find this disappointing. And to explain why, I have to tell a story I’ve been holding off from sharing.
Nuclear is better for nature. It uses 3,000x less land than onshore wind, operates 24/7, and produces zero emissions while protecting our countryside. But piles of red tape stand in the way. So, we're using amendments in Parliament to force Labour to get Britain building.
As a Conservative, it’s tempting to say “thank goodness” that a directionless government has gutted its own planning reforms. But it’s desperately disappointing. The country is in a bad place and this was the best thing Labour were doing. The decline is very stark just now.
Despite all the problems we face, today is probably still the optimal time to be born (other than the future). Our lives are immeasurably better than those of our ancestors and it's mainly thanks to capitalism.
Peasant life in eighteenth century France. Extraordinary to contemplate the fact that for most people for most of history existence was (from a modern perspective) a kind of living hell.