Eurostar - Another Government Farce

[John]

Recover from for what?

To fuel the Free Housing and Free Benefits for life culture?

Great Idea - Not.

[Papaumau]

To recover from the chronic shortage of decent social housing stock !

At least here in Scotland we - or should I more correctly say - the SNP government are working hard at building new RENTABLE housing stock and stopping the sale of the stock that they have left.

In England and Wales Thatcher's legacy is going to be very difficult to recover from if the encumbent London government - of whatever ilk - do not have the courage to do the same.

[yorkie]

I know that this sounds hypercritical, but I have to hold my hands up, as I am one of those people that purchased a council property when it first started.

Over a period of two years I spent a lot of time completely renovating this home including heating and new windows.

Unfortunately I had to try and sell this property, because I had become redundant, and there was know possibility of finding work in the area where I lived, I did however find work, but it was over a hundred miles away.

I had a wife and three children to support, and had to go where I could find work.

What I did find upsetting was that the local  Labour councillors, would not except my reasoning for selling back to the Council, and through the media Expressed
that they would sooner let this house rot on the market than take it back.

In my mind at the time was because I had improved the house to a better standard, know one should have lost out financially.

As it happened I did, but that's life, it has to go on.  

[Papaumau]

Yorkie... I know what John is poorly trying to get at....

It is true that many of the people who found their way to be able to buy their council house at a massive discount DID also spend a lot of money personalising them and making them look nice. This is the "my home is my castle" syndrome that Thatcher was aiming for when she brought in the "right to buy" act.

I cannot really blame the people for taking advantage of those big discounts as I am sure that everybody would love to own their own home, but all that came out of that one bit of social engineering was a chronic lack of decent rentable housing stock. The only houses that were left that were not bought were turned into ghettos for the super-poor and these houses went down and down and finished up looking like any third-world shanty-town condition might be.

THAT is what interfering social engineering finishes up with when it is finished  mucking about with the people at the bottom. They finish up worse off than when they started !

[John]

The discount was worked out fairly.

People who had paid rent and kept the property in decent order
were rewarded.

The Councils had an army of people passing papers around
offices supposedly managing the housing stock.

While many Social Landlords (Housing Associations and Others)
survive on far less staff. With far more detailed tenancy agreements.
Rooting out those who would wreck the place and cause disorder
for others.

Many working with, for and not against their Tenants.

[Papaumau]

The discount was worked out fairly.

People who had paid rent and kept the property in decent order
were rewarded.

The Councils had an army of people passing papers around
offices supposedly managing the housing stock.

While many Social Landlords (Housing Associations and Others)
survive on far less staff. With far more detailed tenancy agreements.
Rooting out those who would wreck the place and cause disorder
for others.

Many working with, for and not against their Tenants.

The discounts were not worked out "fairly", they were worked out cheaply whereby the councils did not get the market value for these properties.

What was worse was that the government refused to allow the councils the right to use that income to build more social housing.

Like many other such "offloading" schemes the housing associations are unhappy with the amounts of subsidies they get  and the £8+billion of taxpayers money that they will get up until 2011 is - they say - "not going to be enough".

They are suggesting that to make money with which to try to cut down on these subsidies they should get into building high amenity and high value rented accomodation for the upmarket renters. This is going to destroy any idea that the housing associations are there to build not-for-profit social housing.

Oh yes, since Thatcher started this particular social engineering ball rolling the ones that got hit the hardest - as usual - were the weak and the less well off. 

See this: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/construction_and_property/article6988656.ece

[John]

"The discounts were not worked out "fairly", they were worked out cheaply whereby the councils did not get the market value for these properties."

This is what giving a discount does.

I will repeat some main reasons for this:

Acknowledgement of Rent already paid

State of the Property

Improvement that would have been needed, central heating, double glazing etc

Restrictions on resale

Against a background of huge unpaid rents, people not looking after property
and moon-lighting, free legal aid for repairs via Court, decline in social behaviour,
top heavy administration costs.

Most Councils could not wait to unload housing stock or hand over to social
landlords (including Housing Associations).

[John]

How did this 'socially engineer' anything or anybody.

Make people  more responsible, more secure.

Not really the meaning is it - unless you can tell me
without the thoughts of Chairman Mao being
quoted...

[Papaumau]

You cannot "make people" into anything worthwhile by giving them bribes !

All that this Thatcherite "social-engineering" experiment did was to drive a wedge deeply between the ones that could just about afford - in some cases - to get a leg up and the ones who couldn't.

This was another TYPICAL Tory act of polarisation of the people where the tenet "divide and conquer" worked very well.

By this one cynical act Thatcher hoped that she would encourage another group of snobbery-driven lower-end people to vote for her kind of elitism and selfishness.

Remember, that she was the one who once said that "society does not exist" and I suppose that she was right in a sense as people who can be successfuly targeted by bribery have little sense of "society" in them.

She also once said that "greed is good" and that just about sums her up as far as I am concerned.

[John]

Are you saying that the right to buy the council house
you were living in was a bribe?

[Papaumau]

Of course it was and it was a political "bribe" at that !

I bet a few previous tory-hating renters swung to the right after they bought their houses with that bribe !

Anyone who cannot see that must be living in cloud-cuckoo land !

[Billtr96sn]

Or Scotland where they are all bitter or drunk

[lwt big cheese]

Of course it was and it was a political "bribe" at that !

I bet a few previous tory-hating renters swung to the right after they bought their houses with that bribe !

Anyone who cannot see that must be living in cloud-cuckoo land !

No it wasn't.

Thatcher didn't like the way that the unions had brought the previous Labour government down. She decided that if we all had houses then we couldn't afford to strike as we would loose our house - and there would be no council houses left to fall back on.

So the populace bought houses below market value and then the unions had their teeth pulled also.

[John]

Troll rubbish.