Sturgav's Tweeter

Oleksandr Usyk is great 👑 What’s been the best performance that you’ve seen from a heavyweight over the past few years? #boxing

David Morrell’s loss to Zack Chelli reopened an uncomfortable conversation: why do so many elite Cuban amateur stars struggle once professional boxing turns into real warfare? My full column on the “Tin Man Syndrome” in Cuban boxing. If you want to better understand the Cuban boxing system and the mentality that shapes many of its fighters, I highly recommend this read. @boxing_social #Boxing boxing-social.com/news/the-cuban…

Listened to the full hour. Worth saying I've huge respect for @Kwajotweneboa's work for people hurt by the housing crisis. But it was a disappointing listen. We got lots of examples of the symptoms, without any meaningful diagnosis. Despite claims of political impartiality, the only 'analysis' was a rehash of the most popular left-wing arguments about rich investors, empty homes, and right-to-buy. If we want to fix the housing crisis, and do so as fast as possible to help real people, we just can't afford to be so partisan. Fundamentally, there's a huge supply-demand mismatch - not a 'million empty homes', but at least 4.5 million homes. We need to address the rapid growth in demand, both from changing living patterns and rapid population growth. We also need to talk about building, planning, and the restrictions we face. Focus on the *symptoms* doesn't help. Why ARE properties awful quality? Why are councils stretched? Why do investors even want UK properties? It's all, ultimately, supply/demand imbalance. If we had a surplus of homes, their prices would fall, affordability would improve. With more choice, people can move, landlords and sellers have to compete, driving up standards and down prices. Ultimately I think politicians are all running scared - they'll happily blame immigrants or the rich, because it's an Other their voters can agree to dislike. It's much harder to confront an electorate with the reality that fixing the crisis means building a LOT more homes - and bringing down the prices of THEIR homes. The real vested interests aren't just developers and rich overseas landlords, but nan and grandad in their semi-detached 3 bed they bought 30 years ago and want to leave for their kids, while opposing the new housing development that would spoil their views or make the roads busier. The fastest possible way to fix the housing crisis is to tackle both supply and demand simultaneously - lower immigration, maybe even net emigration, coupled with a mass building programme of both private AND state sector. Funds for council homes, coupled with planning reform toward a zoned system that respects the real goals of the electorate and simplified rules that allow small housebuilders to get going. Ramp up govt building in recessions, ease off in booms. Instead, we seem stuck in the game of allocating musical chairs. We've got 40 chairs, and 50 people - sure, we can rent control the chairs for the people already sat down, we can even use taxpayer money to buy the chairs already there. But if you don't increase the ratio of chairs to people, those still standing just have to fight harder and harder for the remaining chairs.