Exactly this. Housing land supply in the UK is bottlenecked by politics (NIMBYism) and economics (private developers seeking to maximise profits) not software.
Odd to see the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) presented in such a positive light.
As an engineering project Crossrail became famous for being repeatedly delayed (eventually opening four years late) and many billions over budget.
Since opening the Elizabeth Line has been beset by high numbers of service cancellations and poor punctuality (usually blamed on having to share track outside the central tunnel section with other operators).
Same as those advancing the anti-motorist policies mentioned in the article.
Buy property on the cheap because it’s on a busy road. Campaign to have the road fully/partially blocked to motor traffic, and/or speed limit reduced to something ridiculous (20mph) so motorists end up using other routes to make progress.
If challenged, claim it’s all about the safety of children walking to school. You’d have to be a monster to deny those windfall gains.
For small shop owners it’s a vicious cycle. They don’t want to take in Scottish notes because many customers won’t want them as change. Customers don’t want them as change because a lot of shop owners won’t take them.
As per the article, they’re not legal tender so no one is required to take them as payment.
Just a theory but in a downturn I could see a lot of companies increasing their ad spend as they lose existing customers and find they need to work harder to acquire new ones.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to advertising which is just gratuitous brand building.
What kind of social problems are people seeing GPs about, that they otherwise wouldn’t?
The example usually given is the other way round, that the woeful provision of care by the NHS leads to other public services (notably the police) becoming the backstop, e.g. for those with mental health issues.
Have you considered that a consultant hired to fix a specific problem, and salaried employees seeking to justify their existence, may have slightly misaligned incentives?