Did you catch this love-in between omnipresent BBC “analyst” Red Ken Livingstone and Mr Naughty? The topic was “social housing” (Gotta love the euphemism for State control of the housing stock!) and the point was that “working-class” people are “ANGRY because they can’t get a house so Government must seize control of this area of our lives. Thatcher gets bashed, BNP gets bashed and the creed of socialism gets a free outing. The BBC present the alternative to left wing Labour as even more left wing Livingstone. Pathetic.
EVERYBODY LOVES KEN…
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This is one of the things that gets me about people in this country. You guys (ok, I dont mean you personally) expect everything to be done for you!
I got in to an argument with some woman once who was whinging about the council not finding her a better place so I asked her why she doesnt go get one herself?
The conversation went down hill from there! 🙂
But then again, this is what you get when the government creates a social welfare state. Why should people get off their arses and look after themselves when the Government will do it for you?
In my perfect state, there would be a freeze on all new social housing. If you cant afford the house you are in now, move to a cheaper area (ie. out of London), downsize, cut spending BUT for the love of allah, dont expect me, the tax payer to fund your home while you make no effort what so ever to help yourself.
There, first rant for the morninng, the world can now continue! 🙂
Mailman
The uk housing 'market' has created nothing but miseRy.
Council housing has always been the answer, until the wrethched witch allowed people to buy them.
Ever seen a council house repossessed?
Nope.
Watch out in the US for Obama dragging you down the same system.
The middle class aspirational folk will end up paying for the freeloaders whose ideal lifestyle is to do as little as possible at everyone elses expense, and then claim they have been dispossessed by the State.
Before long the scumbags take over the asylum.(see Ed Balls)
I have the misfortune to live quite close to a council estate in SE London. Never seen so many high-maintenance cars in my life.
Alexei Sayle (of all people) summed it up years ago – full of people complaining that the council hasn't been around to flush their toilets today.
Mailman is right – too many feckless whiners.
I see there is still a rich vein of simpletons on this site.
The witch as you refer to her gave my mother in law the ability to buy the house she had been paying rent on for 30 years, and gave a lot of people a sense of pride in being property owners.
Sensibly financed house owners still have a great asset which will revalue once Labour is eradicated.
Socialism is dead amongst the tax payers and lives only in media world
Frankos,
That same system also contributed to the housing bubble simply because people were not encumbered to keep their houses instead of selling then on as quickly as possible.
Good on your mother…but the reality is that the system that helped her buy her house has led to todays housing problems.
Mailman
not mother but mother in law (not a mistake to make!)– Housing problem was caused mainly by poor financial management by both lenders and borrowers and under production of new houses.
A lot of old folk have kept their council bought houses and improved them with the stimulus of the houses being their own.
I don't disagree that mass state ownership is a poor system
Mailman
The sale of council houses dates back nearly 30 years, to the early Thatcher Housing Acts. The main rush of purchasing was in the early years.
So I can't agree that letting people buy their own home was any sort of major contribution to the housing bubble of the past 7 or 8years. More significant causes were the rapid increase in numbrs of households needing accommodation – caused by unlimited immigration and also by family breakdowns. Plus the building societies and banks ditching their earlier rules of prudence in lending policies.
Blaming the recent collapse in house prices on the sale of council houses is a little far-fetched.
The bubble was not so much appreciated by ZaNuLabour as actively encouraged, because it gave hoi polloi the illusion that everything was fine in an economy that was, in reality, heading for the scrapheap as fast as McBean could hurl money at his favoured recipients.
The BBC played no small part in this. How many programmes extolled the virtues of working hard, starting a business, or saving money?
Yet how may airheads were on our screens, trilling about get rich quick property scams?
John a
totally agree, the housing Market imploded
due to unscrupulous lending= greed.
Greed isn't good.
The council house, where I grew up, wasn't
about class- it was decent state funded bliss .
All those complaining on here about estates etc
should hang there heads in shame.
Mailman
Nothing wrong with selling council houses as long as the money raised is used to build more council accomodation. By the way, whatever happened to all that money? Thatcher wouldn't let councils spend it. I wonder who did let them spend it?
But, I'm going off topic.
The housing boom over the last 8 or so years has not been a housing boom. It's been a credit boom. And an awful lot of that credit has found it's way into one asset class – residential housing.
Too much easy credit chasing a limited supply results in one thing – prices rising. It could have been baked beans or tulip bulbs!
And the answer to affordable housing and a credit crunch? Let house prices find their true level and the housing market will regenerate. Instead we have a stupid government pumping billions of taxpayers cash into trying to support high prices.
And then they have the bottle to turn round and suggest they are building so many hundreds of thousands of 'affordable' homes!
You couldn't make it up!
Understanding Gordon and Scottish Socialism.
Out in the suburbs of Glasgow you will see how the housing divide works between council-owned and privately owned. At one time all the houses in these streets were council owned and rented. Then came Thatcher's the right to buy: some did, some didn't.
As you drive down the streets today you cannot help but notice around half the houses have brand spanking new roofs and windows, whilst the other half look delapidated in their original old condition.
Yes, you guessed it. The ones with new roofs are the council-ownwd ones.
andrew south london.
so what is your point?
so what that councils keep council houses in good nick?
whats this, class warfare?
actually quite the opposite –the best kept houses in Leeds are ex council.
The council looks after present tenants as best they can, but some of the new crop of tenants have no pride and the houses and gardens are a bloody disgrace.
You can normally tell who does and doesn't own their own house as you drive past.
David rightly described the Naughtie-Livingstone interview as "a love-in". Did they get a room afterwards? Is civil partnership in the offing?
It was more like a chat than an interview. Soft, supportive questions, no challenging interruptions (only a helpful one) and even a "no indeed" from Naughtie (as Livingstone agreed with him over migrants).
Two people (one a politician, the other a supposedly impartial BBC journalist) making one (left-wing) case, together.
Pathetic indeed.
Frankos – thats the defining difference. In Scotland, Labour councils get their revenge on the Tartan Tories that dared to buy their own homes. The councils raid money from those who pay council tax ("Tories"), to improve the homes of their neighbours who don't (Labour). Its sectarian spite.
Leeds is part of England (not that you'd know that as you exit the railway station)
They just award social housing to the non-English.
"Leeds is part of England (not that you'd know that as you exit the railway station) "
hmm – everytime i go to leeds i just see all the new shiny buildings on the way in.
perhaps you see other things BNP boy?
what the hell has that statement got to do with BBC bias andrew?
people like you were rightly shafted in cable street 60 years ago – put your racist placards away.
The whole point of this thread was that socialist dictator loving Livingstone and the BBC contend that we would all be much happier in Government housing rather than our own.
This is the usual "mummy state control is best" that the BBC and it's tame socialist braindeads deal in.
Each and every day the BBC comes out with some labour think tank report or other telling us that we should all welcome warm nurturing state intervention rather than the nasty old private option.
Could anyone please explain to me in plain English what the difference is between Social Housing and Sub Prime mortgages?
As I understand it, social housing is where people live in a house they can't afford, but the bill is paid for by the tax payer, unlike a sub prime, where people live in a house they can't afford but the bill is pay for by themselves – up to the point where food becomes a more important purchase!
Anyone with a better explanation – and why its OK for the state to keep pushing this stupid model of home ownership?
One does not have to be a BNP supporter, or a racist, to comment that many parts of our cities look like another country. That there has been a massive level of immigration from the sub-continent.
If you think Leeds is bad (and it is), you should see Bradford. It was hot today in Yorkshire. If you took someone who'd been in a coma for years to Manningham in Bradford and somehow got them to regain consciousness, the first thing they'd say is, 'Where am I? Pakistan?' to which you could reply, 'To all intents and purposes – yeah.'
it isn't suprising that a lot of ex Labour voters have switched to BNP in Leeds.
They see Labour as a middle class party more interested in the Guardian than the Mirror reader.
The Guardianistas in the Party have denied race as an issue since 97 and have now reaped the consequences.
Any actions now look kneejerk and play into the BNPs hands
LABOUR RIP