Perhaps another comparison, demand and waiting list-wise would be dentists. Almost everyone needs one at some point, and the most sought after ones are often nhs ones which are considerably cheaper but offer comparable services. I choose to remain in the care of my NHS dentist, in a region where the demand versus supply is almost the worst in the uk. I could give that place up to someone even less able to afford private treatment than me. But i don't. Does that make me better or worse than Bob Crow? (Bearing in mind my dental treatment is both subsidised and below the "market rate".)
mudshark - Member
BTW, anyone else support this view?
thx's? Yes.
Anyone else support this view? Erm.... Yeah
This government is prepared to cause chaos in the social housing market, purely in the name of a completely discredited dogma. While at the same time proposing guaranteeing £120 billion in taxpayer funded loans! All so that people who couldn't afford to get on the housing ladder can mortgage themselves to the hilt to re-inflate the crazily overpriced housing bubble while interest rates are low. all so they can then call it, in the absence of anything real or tangible, economic growth!
Haven't we been here before?
They had a name for this when they did it in the states a few years back. What was it again? Ah yes.... 'Sub-prime'. Can anyone remember how it worked out? Seemed like a fantastic idea. Flawless if I remember rightly. What could possibly go wrong?
I could understand the support for Bob Crow if he really was a champion of the poor, but unfortunately he's most famous for getting more money for people who already earn well in excess of the average wage.
Robin Hood he is not.
Well i for one wish he was doing my wage negotiations!
We live in a society where institutional non-exec directors sign off each others vast pay rises and bonuses, while constantly driving down salaries for the rest in a race to the bottom! Median wages have reduced from a hardly excessive £24,000 to £21,000 in the last few years, while executive salaries have continued to disappear into the stratosphere, while bearing no actual relation to economic results or performance
Given that Bob Crowe has bucked this trend for the people he represents, we could do with a lot more like him!
And it's also not difficult to see why the right wing press, and the grasping selfish morons who read it, don't like him
We seem to have gone way off beam here.....
In principle, there should be capacity in the social housing system for their tenants to be moved around different sized properties in a reasonably local area so that tenants had an appropriate sized property and the providers could make best use of their housing stock - it's what used to happen with my grandparents in the 1970s/80s who got moved around the local council houses as their needs changed.
The fact is, that capacity has been lost due to [i]successive[/i] governments and council policies over the last 30 years.
In principle, anyone [i]choosing[/i] to remain in rented social accommodation should not have their "extra" accommodation paid for out of the public purse.
In practice, this policy does not address either of these problems.
Maybe if the money they were going to spend on HS2 got redirected to buying and renovating empty/sub-standard housing to address the various housing needs in local communities, then the practice and principles might fit better. It may also create some jobs and generate some small growth in the economy. I may also be peeing into a strong headwind in thinking that such a sensible joined up plan would be adopted by a government of any party....
[i]Given that Bob Crowe has bucked this trend for the people he represents, we could do with a lot more like him![/i]
While I can't stick the man, I can admire what he has done.
And WTF has Bob Crowe got to do with the recent change to benefits?
I don't know what all this is about but I have knocked down all the internal walls upstairs just in case.
Really though if there's a massive need for 3 and 4 bed properties why create a temporary bubble for 1 and 2 bed properties? Just buy or rent some more 3 and 4 bed housing ( god knows there plenty if it empty up north) and then when all the old childless Tennants croak in their massive empty houses families can return to your southern utopia, if they really want to.
Well it looks like this is all going [url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/09/bedroom-tax-huge-problems-worse?INTCMP=SRCH ]really, really well[/url] so far. As predicted for such a well thought through and carefully considered policy.
[i]So, the government's benefits policy is in a mess. Its housing policy is a fiasco, and it is making huge problems even worse.[/i]
