Personally I front believe anyone should be in a council house or subsidised housing is they afford enough to live in private rented accommodation. Council houses should be for people that can not afford to live anywhere else. When you start earning more you should have to move out. It should purely be seen as a service provided by the council. Yes councils should build more houses but only when their current stock is full of people in need. I also agree that if you have a house that is to big then you should have to move. But of course the council should have to provide you with the option of something smaller before they start charging you extra for spare bedrooms.

Also council houses in expensive locations should be sold off so that more council houses can be built in cheaper locations. I have also ways worked and have had to skimp and save to pay my rent and have had to choose to live in cheaper locations, thats just life.

Why should I have to subsidise someone living in a council house through council tax, who can afford to rent there own house privately, it makes no sense

Leaving aside the issue of whether Liz and Phil work hard!!!!

I’m sure they do work hard, but the wealth they have is hugely disproportionate compared with say a factory worker who probably works harder..

But equally it’s absurd to suggest that financial reward comes without hard work.

Taking the example of any member of the present Tory cabinet… at what point during the gestation of the foetus had it worked hard enough to have earned its vast inherited wealth?

This could really complicate the abortion/pro-life debate 😉

We didn’t struggle so much in the 1950s and 60s, despite a rising population at that time.

Really? in the fifties we still had tens of thousands of families living in army huts that they had squatted in after the war (my mum was one of them) and millions more were overcrowded, most young married couples moved in with their parents while they were waiting for a council house that more often than not turned out to be a prefabricated bungalow that you would be prosecuted for putting animals in nowadays.

The squatting movement was massive in the sixties – you seem to forget that ‘Cathy Come Home’ was shown in ’66 not ’96!

Compare the housebuilding rate between then and now. The Luftwaffe did cause one or two problems you know…

True footflaps, which is why as an employee it helps to have skills that are not easily replicated. Otherwise supply and demand suggest that our returns from hard work will not be high.

Working hard in itself doesn’t guarantee anything. I am sure the aforementioned foetus (poor really!) works hard but to little positive effect clearly.

Why should I have to subsidise someone living in a council house through council tax, who can afford to rent there own house privately, it makes no sense

Council house residents are not subsidised.

Ransos – Ssssshhhhhhhh…. you’ll tear a hole in the Daily Mail/reality continum . Then Christ only knows what’ll happen 😉

Compare the housebuilding rate between then and now.

Agreed, we’re not building houses quick enough to match the need,

but theres still four million immigrants* since Thatcher sold off the council houses

*Figures – 1991 census 3.6 million non-UK born respondents, 2011 census, 7.5 million non UK born respondents.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/immigration-patterns-and-characteristics-of-non-uk-born-population-groups-in-england-and-wales/non-uk-born-census-populations-1951—2011—full-infographic.html

but theres still four million immigrants* since Thatcher sold off the council houses

Yep, they come over here, paying our taxes… where will it end?

If you had dazzling intelligence and god-like (God/Gods exist?) vision why on earth would you want to be a politician. That really is insane.

Ask Tony Blair, seems to be doing quite well on the after dinner/consultancy circuit….

Problem we have is there are lots of jobs that need to be done, lots of quite crap jobs if we’re honest.

One example, in the news fairly recently, elderly care, that are a lot of good carers, but there are also a lot who end up in the job because to be blunt they are virtually unemployable they don’t give a damn about the residents, they cut corners, avoid work, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want them caring for any relative of mine! So how do you ensure that you get good staff, when the wages are crap.

At the other extreme you have FTSE CEO’s and the like, they sit on each others remuneration committees and basically set there own pay. How many employees would welcome the chance to set there own pay packages, or at least set them for co workers in a reciprocal arrangement?

Leaving aside the issue of whether Liz and Phil work hard!!!!

I’m sure they do work hard, but the wealth they have is hugely disproportionate compared with say a factory worker who probably works harder..

They’ve worked harder over a longer period of time than the average top league footballer.

Net migration hasn’t increased population as much as indigenous population growth.

They’ve worked harder over a longer period of time than the average top league footballer.

Straw men don’t do much either.

They’ve worked harder over a longer period of time than the average top league footballer.

Royalty enjoy enormous wealth, regardless of talent or dedication. Rather different to a pro footballer.

All parties are effective now committed to achieving budget surpluses – the question is how. Ed Balls on 18 Dec that his own review would consider cuts in NHS, pensions, winter fuel etc as well as changing the pension age. A different ideology????

Isn’t the real question about when not if one party will be honest about the ring-fencing. So GO is not only protecting pensions, he is guaranteeing the triple lock which is madness. He also claims to want to protect health (is balls more honest here.) and education.

So that leaves the burden to fall elsewhere. As mentioned above policies like the under 25s idea is finger in the dyke stuff. So basically to protect the big things everything else will now be cut harder including housing and housing benefit.

Hard to see his numbers adding up – so at some stage the ring fence will have to go. Tinkering will utlimately not work for whoever is in power.

Leaving aside the issue of whether Liz and Phil work hard!!!!

I’m sure they do work hard, but the wealth they have is hugely disproportionate compared with say a factory worker who probably works harder..

They’ve worked harder over a longer period of time than the average top league footballer.

Royals and premier league footballers living in council houses, this country’s going to the dogs, Im moving to spain. They don’t have footballers, royals, immigrants and financial crises there, i can tell you that for nowt.

Point is no-one gets what they deserve in terms of effort. Footballer (fairly IMO) gets paid a lot by having a rare skill, Royalty get paid a lot due to their family but factory workers are all over the place. Royal family are like footballers and pop stars, we pay for their entertainment value.

Royal family are like footballers and pop stars, we pay for their entertainment value.

Paying for footballers and pop stars is optional.

*Figures – 1991 census 3.6 million non-UK born respondents, 2011 census, 7.5 million non UK born respondents.

and what is the number of UK citizens that have emigrated? 4-5Million?

And what does UK born mean? Just because you aren’t born in the UK does that make you less British? Ask Bradley Wiggins if you need some help answering.

I am an Irish Citizen(dual) and have only spent 3 days there in my life?

Point is no-one gets what they deserve in terms of effort. Footballer (fairly IMO) gets paid a lot by having a rare skill,

How many football clubs make money or even break even once you remove dodgy Russian money?

If you define worth on the basis of the ROI, Beckham yes worth a lot can’t argue that, but most of the rest?

Paying for footballers and pop stars is optional.

The state spends a lot of money on all sorts of entertainments – e.g. NY fireworks, museums, TdF stages.

Anyway, not sure why it matters, we can’t afford to build council housing for everyone who’d be happy to take it.

ransos – Member
Royalty enjoy enormous wealth, regardless of talent or dedication. Rather different to a pro footballer.

And both enjoy the random distribution of benefits/talents/ etc at birth. Neither is better/worse. They have been dealt a lucky hand at birth (as have most of use here in a global context). Whoever benefits from being born into a rich household or with great sporting talents is completely arbitrary and random.

mrmo – Member
Point is no-one gets what they deserve in terms of effort. Footballer (fairly IMO) gets paid a lot by having a rare skill

…which also includes the random distribution of talent.

Beckham yes worth a lot can’t argue that, but most of the rest?

How many people are forced or coerced into buying tickets to watch the rest? And compare that with forcing other people to give up “their money” or taking it off them.

Funnily enough, if you look at footballers path to sucsess it actually mirrors that of many other wealthy sectors of society. They tend to be clusters from certain schools or youth clubs where someone has the contacts to get players scouted into academies. It isn’t just about talent and hard work, there is a big portion of luck involved as well.

So which is it then? Footballers or council houses? YOU DECIDE!!!

Seriously though if everyone naffed off their sky subscription and payed it in tax instead – job done. Possibly.

Whoever benefits from being born into a rich household or with great sporting talents is completely arbitrary and random.

If you are born into a rich household, you are rich. By contrast, innate sporting talent counts for nothing on its own.

True, which is why meritocracy is better than a feudal system. But neither get around the basic issue that talents, like family background, are still distributed on a purely random basis. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, I will still be unable to run as fast as Bolt or Farah. I will always come behind them but that doesn’t give me any right to take away their rewards or heaven forbid stop them from running or even chop their feet off so that we would have the same outcome.

Being born rich doesn’t meant that you end your life rich either. There is a little something in between.

But in the end, we enter this life with nothing and we leave it with nothing. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

It doesn’t matter how hard I work, I will still be unable to run as fast as Bolt or Farah.

True, but in their cases, as you say “it’s absurd to suggest that financial reward comes without hard work. “

Not quite the same with inheritance, is it?

If I earn lots of money why can’t I, say, buy my son a house? Would you stop me? When I die would you take it?

But in the end, we enter this life with nothing and we leave it with nothing. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Not true THM. As the Streets said ‘I came to this life with nothing, and I leave with nothing but love’. And he had a gospel choir singing it too. So it must be true!

😛

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8BHL5SWX0Q[/video]

If you are born into a rich household, you are rich. By contrast, innate sporting talent counts for nothing on its own.

And if you are born into a rich household, and have talent? You are in the position to be able to put your talent to use.

Yes there is a lot of luck in it, but should there be? Should you be able to buy better schooling or contacts by going to Eton? Should some schools (academies) be given better funding than LEA schools? If we assume that good schooling is what enables you to get anywhere in life?

Nothing will ever be perfect I accept that, I just despair a little at the difference in opportunity available depending on your background.

And on your point about talents, is it random? how much is nature how much nuture? So how much of it is actually random.

I will still be unable to run as fast as Bolt or Farah.

If you made the right sacrifices, had the right facilities and breaks and were on the ahem ‘right programme’ then I bet you could get damn close.

And if you are born into a rich household, and have talent? You are in the position to be able to put your talent to use.

Not necessarily a good thing!

I doubt it, but nice dream. Don’t fancy one aspect of the program (?) to get there though!!!!

Mrmo, it’s an interesting debate though. Developed much better by John Rawls (Theory of Justice) than I can do here. The difference is that unlike people like Milton Friedman, Rawls believed that there was a solution to the inequality that the random distribution of talents produces. A classic read. As relevant today as when it was first written? May be even more so today.

I agree with your broad point that we all have natural talents but

that doesn’t give me any right to take away their rewards or heaven forbid stop them from running or even chop their feet off so that we would have the same outcome.

True but it is a race and life is not a race it is about making sure everyone finishes the race [ the reality is the iniquitous spread of resources literally leads to folk dieing, children not having clean water, living in hovels, eating from dumps, child labour, early deaths etc. I am comfortable hindering folks natural talents to acquire vast wealth to eradicate this] and we may reasonably expect the more talented to help the less talented – by compulsion as few are that philanthropic.

Being born rich doesn’t meant that you end your life rich either.

Yes I bet Prince charles is terrified about loosing it all as are all the other wealthy families. It is lot easier to end up rich when your family are rich and a lot harder to end up poor as well. I like to quote the parable of the sower here to explain this though of course stats would do as well. Yes there is some limited movement but it is VERY limited. That is human nature though as we would all give to our kids all that we can.