Guardian comments – right to buy
November 18th, 2011
UPDATE: 29/9/13 Oh bollocks, I was trolled. I’ve just seen this exchange on a completely different article:-
Good luck with your trolling attempts, Mizzentop / RJM1968 / BusinessLeader. Don’t work too hard – the champagne bar in the Midland Hotel will be opening soon.
https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/27455358
Taken from:-
Austerity protesters outnumber Conservative delegates conference
I wish I’d spotted him first then I wouldn’t have wasted all that effort debating a troll. I’ll leave the rest here for you to amuse yourself with.
November 18th 2011
I’ve spent the day bashing seven bells out of the keyboard in support of council housing and against RTB in a discussion on the Guardian website with a gentleman from South Wales.
I’m Piecesofeight.
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16 November 2011 8:26PM
Thatcher was guilty of the greatest sin in my book of selling off council houses. She caused the housing crisis we have now and for that I could never forgive her.
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17 November 2011 9:42AM
Response to zeldalicious, 16 November 2011 8:26PM
That doesn’t even make sense. If the council houses were sold, surely the total number of houses in the country remains the same.
The problem is a lack of housing in general, not who owns them. The lack of housing has been caused by massive immigration (all the population rise is attributed to this) and to a lesser extent the break up of the nuclear family (more single people require houses).
The sale of council houses was a fantastic policy (highly supported by the working classes may I add, 2 million of them took the opportunity) that empowered hard working people, and gave them control of their own home instead of being told what to do by a local govt official who knew nothing about their lives.
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Piecesofeight’s comment 17 November 2011 10:48AM
@lordsandwich
That doesn’t even make sense. If the council houses were sold, surely the total number of houses in the country remains the same.
The problem is a lack of housing in general, not who owns them. The lack of housing has been caused by massive immigration (all the population rise is attributed to this) and to a lesser extent the break up of the nuclear family (more single people require houses).
The sale of council houses was a fantastic policy (highly supported by the working classes may I add, 2 million of them took the opportunity) that empowered hard working people, and gave them control of their own home instead of being told what to do by a local govt official who knew nothing about their lives.
A one off bung for the fortunate who happened to be living in one, giving away billions of tax payers money that had been used to build them to a select few, many of whom moved on to become buy to let landlords as a result. If you’re going to distribute the state’s wealth why do it for select few and why not for all?
You are perpetuating the old lie that if council houses are sold nothing changes, there are still the same number of houses. That simply isn’t the case. Those houses removed from state ownership are no longer available to be allocated at a cost price rent when the present owners move out. They are lost from the housing stock.
Let’s take an extreme, not too far removed from the present situation. Let us suppose that there were no council houses, as before say 1890. Those who can afford to are property owners and those who cannot are renting from private landlords.
What council housing did was to level the playing field up from the bottom such that those able to gain one could move from poor quality private renting to a dwelling built and let at cost, below market rents.
What Thatcher did was to reverse this process, diminishing the number of council owned properties available for rent at cost and promoting the false hope that we could all become property owners.
This was and is demonstrably false. It has robbed many people of what could have been a good quality home in which to raise a family.
The only thing that might have saved the situation would have been to build one for one as each one was sold a replacement was to be built but where? If council houses exist that is because land was made available in the first place somewhere suitable. There is no guarantee that even if you are able to use the money from the sale of one that you can find a suitable place to build another, [in close proximity to the one sold.]
RTB was a disaster for council housing and nothing will convince me otherwise.
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Mizzentop
17 November 2011 6:26PM
Privatisation, the selling off of council housing, war against the unions was all done in the name of monetarism, or “sado-monetarism” as some dubbed it.
Seeking to improve opportunity for the least well off is noble and to be applauded. No sensible person can be an advocate for poverty. However, what I’ve never understood about the Left is that whilst many of its commentators (including Ms Moore) supposedly wants more equality, better opportunities for all etc, in practice they oppose policies that seek to do this.
There is probably no better example of offering a “hand-up” than the Right To Buy council houses. Millions have benefitted. Estates have improved as people take better care of their stake in society. The Left should be lauding Thatcher for this, but instead they reveal the strange truth of their political position; that they want the poor to remain “in their place” and be patronised with benefits and faux pity.
It’s not fashionable to remember that Thatcher had support from the poorest to the richest in society. It is the champagne socialists and leafy sub[u]rb liberals that have most hate for her for this very reason.
Lets not be silly and claim she was perfect, but she did much more good than harm and no PM since has been remotely as impressive.
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Piecesofeight
17 November 2011 7:15PM
@Mizzentop
Oh dear oh dear oh dear, you really don’t get it do you?
There is probably no better example of offering a “hand-up” than the Right To Buy council houses. Millions have benefited.
Yes, those who happened to live in a council house at the time. Why favour a small percentage of the population if you’re handing out goodies? Because it buys you two million votes that’s why. I’m willing to bet the number of Tory votes increased from those households given large discounts and bought under RTB.
Worse, handing out the goodies deprived the subsequent generation of somewhere genuinely affordable to live. Not the modern perverted use of the word affordable which means “unaffordable” but the original use of the word which meant at cost and not market rates.
Estates have improved as people take better care of their stake in society.
Oh how I laughed at this one. Have you heard the term “sink estate”? Let’s take a moment out to read what Deborah Orr has to say shall we. A truly brilliant recent article, I couldn’t have put it better myself.
The most astounding thing about this mess is that there is still a widespread failure to understand that a flagship ideological experiment in self-regulation by the market is in tatters. The deregulation of banks and building societies, combined with draconian restrictions on the provision of new council housing, which could have replaced stock diminished by the right to buy, was supposed to transform “sink estates” into privately owned and lovingly cared-for communities. Instead, the social demographic of people living in council flats has narrowed massively. The people with the greatest problems are herded together, sometimes seeking a dark kind of identity in their blighted postcode, to the point at which the threat of eviction from council housing is seriously touted as a way of encouraging people to think twice before they take part in riots. God help us.
And on you go . . .
The Left should be lauding Thatcher for this, but instead they reveal the strange truth of their political position; that they want the poor to remain “in their place” and be patronised with benefits and faux pity.
What is there to laud? She stopped the money from the sales under RTB being used to replace the stock, she destroyed the manufacturing base through the failed policy of monetarism, reduced funding for local councils through reducing the rate support grant, and lots of other stuff mentioned by others above but my interest is housing so I’m sticking with that.
Lastly, impressive? Did you by any chance go to a public school? I can’t see any other explanation. Either that or you’re Matthew Parris posting under a pseudonym.
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Mizzentop
17 November 2011 10:41PM
Response to Piecesofeight, 17 November 2011 7:15PM
You assume that anyone broadly supportive of Thatcher must be an out of touch elitist who went to public school. I’ll disappoint you by saying that I’m comprehensive school taught, have my own small business and I’m nowhere near being a millionaire!I won’t say that every council estate has been transformed by private ownership, but I will say that I’ve seen with my own eyes that when these houses are bought they are mostly improved – outside painted, windows replaced, gardens tidied up etc.
When you get enough of these in an area, it does encourage the others in the neighbourhood to up the standards a bit as well. Believe Deborah Orr if you like – but I’m giving you facts here, and not just odd examples either – general trends across lots of estates in South Wales (where I’m from).And whats the nonsense about RTB being bad because it only benefits poor people in Council houses?!
What a typical Leftist argument – Government can’t do something to help one group because poor people WITHOUT council houses cwon’t benefit. Therefore, lets keep things equal by keeing everyone down.The argument about the housing stock being available for other people is also misleading. These houses haven’t GONE – people are still living in them.
Quite why its not ok to have these houses lived in if they are privately owned beats me.This attitude the Left have that poor people have to be consigned to relying on the State forever amazes me. If they buy their house they are regarded as having “sold out” to ambition and aspiration. It is attitudes like this that stop the British electorate voting for Left Wing policies. We only voted for Blair because he was expressly pro-aspiration.
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Piecesofeight
18 November 2011 8:48AM
I won’t say that every council estate has been transformed by private ownership, but I will say that I’ve seen with my own eyes that when these houses are bought they are mostly improved – outside painted, windows replaced, gardens tidied up etc. When you get enough of these in an area, it does encourage the others in the neighbourhood to up the standards a bit as well.
I don’t doubt that for a moment but we’re talking about different things, I’m talking about inner city concrete estates of flats and you’re talking about houses on the edge of small towns in Wales. In both cases it was iniquitous to sell them. They weren’t hers to sell.
Believe Deborah Orr if you like – but I’m giving you facts here, and not just odd examples either – general trends across lots of estates in South Wales (where I’m from).
I don’t need to “believe Deborah Orr if [I] like”, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, before and after. I worked on the estates daily in the late 1970s and then in the 1990s saw the results.
And what’s the nonsense about RTB being bad because it only benefits poor people in Council houses?! What a typical Leftist argument – Government can’t do something to help one group because poor people WITHOUT council houses won’t benefit. Therefore, lets keep things equal by keeping everyone down.
First of all I disagree that it’s nonsense, secondly RTB was gerrymandering pure and simple. It was obvious that people given huge discounts to buy their home were more likely to vote Tory and the results could be seen in subsequent elections.
It’s absurd to say that you’re keeping everyone down by not selling council houses, what you’re doing in that case is to protect a state asset which is the stock of national housing. They weren’t hers to sell, they belonged to all of us, the nation, as a common asset.
In a previous reply to LordSandwich I said the following:-
What council housing did was to level the playing field up from the bottom such that those able to gain one could move from poor quality private renting to a dwelling built and let at cost, below market rents.
That’s not keeping everyone poor, those who could then afford to live in private housing did so, those who did not had the state provided alternative. The right (you included) attack the lefts’ attempts to improve the lot of the poor as an attempt to keep everybody poor but that’s not the case, all we’re doing (and I include myself on the left) is to protect the living standards of those with less money and less opportunity. This [is] a noble aim, not something I’m ever likely to hear from you, clearly.
The argument about the housing stock being available for other people is also misleading. These houses haven’t GONE – people are still living in them. Quite why it’s not ok to have these houses lived in if they are privately owned beats me
Once again you’ve missed the point, even though I have spelt out the reasons why so I’ll say it again. If you remove housing from the housing pool that housing is no longer available to let to another family when the former occupants move on. In your world through aspiring to greater things. The house IS lost. It is lost from the national council housing stock. It is no longer available to let at a rent at cost which can be vastly different to a market rent.
This attitude the Left have that poor people have to be consigned to relying on the State forever amazes me.
What a stupid thing to say. Let it amaze you. There are some people and I’m one of them who think beyond the narrow boundaries of their own life experience and realise that they could have been born anywhere into any circumstances. It is this ability to “put yourself in other peoples shoes” that the right seems to lack, certainly it repeatedly demonstrates the inability to show empathy to others and declares its own mean self interest.
The Left does not have a desire that poor people have to be consigned to relying on the State forever, the Left has a desire that the poorest and least able in society not be left behind as others more fortunate or better able race on ahead. What the right forget is that they too might have been born into poorer circumstances but they can rarely see that and the exceptions are notable by their philanthropy but why should those at the bottom rely on philanthropy?
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Piecesofeight
18 November 2011 8:54AM
@Mizzenstock
Council housing was built to offer the opportunity to improve the living standards of people in dreadful housing, at a reasonable rent, a rent determined by cost, not by opportunistic market rates. The desire of the Left to buy land and build housing to let at cost is simply an attempt to level up from the bottom and housing sold from this pool is destroying that attempt.
This constant slander from the Right that this kind of thing is an attempt to keep the poor poor and prevent them from having “aspirations” is hilarious. People are free at any time to hand in their keys, buy on the private market and become rich and successful BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND!
Do you get it yet or are you still stuck in your narrow mindset?
I like South Wales, it’s a lovely part of the country. It was Labour for years. Do you honestly think that if you took a poll of your fellow countrymen and women that you would get a greater than 50% majority in favour of RTB? I don’t.
If they buy their house they are regarded as having “sold out” to ambition and aspiration. It is attitudes like this that stop the British electorate voting for Left Wing policies. We only voted for Blair because he was expressly pro-aspiration.
No, they are regarded as taking advantage of a one off bung to those fortunate enough to be in a council house at the time. They could have bought on the open market. It’s attitudes like yours that perpetuate the slide of this country towards further inequality. Handing out the state goodies to a select few who will then vote Tory is pure evil.
Blair was a Thatcher clone. I’ve never voted for him.
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Mizzentop
18 November 2011 4:56PM
Piecesofeight
I like South Wales, it’s a lovely part of the country. It was Labour for years. Do you honestly think that if you took a poll of your fellow countrymen and women that you would get a greater than 50% majority in favour of RTB? I don’t.
I have absolutely no doubt that a sizeable majority across all income brackets support RTB. It is a fantastic example of social mobility.
We are clearly at opposite ends of the argument here, but your attitude that poor people who recognise their place and stay as a tenant of the State are noble, but that those who choose to buy are taking a “bung”, is telling.
You describe a world in which collectivism is all and individual responsibility & aspiration are to be avoided. That is a direct route to economic and social stagnation. Encouraging people to accept their lot with no hope of progress or a better future is not of help to anyone, least of all the poor. Whatever else can be said of Thatcher, she believed in meritocracy.
She gave millions of Council Tenants an opportunity to own a stake in society; something to be proud of and something to aim for. You make the point that she did this to “buy votes”. Have you considered that the message of “opportunity if you want to grasp it” appealed more to the less well off than Labours bleak message that they must accept their lot and collect their dole with no hope of improvement?
South Wales is solid Labour territory, but Thatchers RTB policy probably did more to help the Valleys improve than anything Labour Governments or Labour Councils have ever done for them. If you like, you can consider it an example of wealth redistribution on almost unprecented scale.
Thankfully, your views are never likely to be represented in Government so we can all rest easy that we won’t find ourselves in a country where there is no incentive to get up and go every day.
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Piecesofeight
18 November 2011 6:28PM
Response to Mizzentop, 17 November 2011 6:26PM@Mizzentop
It is a fantastic example of social mobility.
For those who happened to live in a council house or flat at the time.
We are clearly at opposite ends of the argument here, but your attitude that poor people who recognise their place and stay as a tenant of the State are noble, but that those who choose to buy are taking a “bung”, is telling.
Rubbish. At 8:54AM I said, “They could have bought on the open market”. Anybody living in a council house where right to buy is not available is free to buy on the open market, there’s nothing to stop them. What was and remains iniquitous is that it was done, and is again being heralded, at a large discount as a party political gesture to a few at the expense of the majority, using state assets.
I repeat. The council houses sold belonged to the nation, to the population of the United Kingdom as part of our national wealth. They were sold, at a discount to that small percentage of the population who happened to live in one, depriving succeding generations of the chance to live in accommodation for rent at cost instead of a market rent.
Your willingness to disregard those sections of my argument with which you disagree is quite remarkable.
You describe a world in which collectivism is all and individual responsibility & aspiration are to be avoided.
Absolute rubbish. I describe a world in which those unable otherwise to afford to be able to leave home and start a family, or who might otherwise be obliged through circumstance (broken homes, cramped family accommodation, you name it), were able to afford to move into accommodation provided at cost, not at a market rent, something that has enabled several generations of people to improve the quality of their lives and those of their children until the stupidity of right to buy.
Right to buy has been like running a train into the buffers. It is an end stop. It is a way of ending council housing for good because unless replacements are built, like for like for rents at cost – not this affordable mantra which doesn’t mean what it says – then we are witnessing the end of council housing.
If you like, you can consider it an example of wealth redistribution on almost unprecented scale.
Oh it was that alright, if you throw money at people they’re hardly going to turn it down are they? But it was the beginning of the end of council housing, and this you apparently regard as good thing? Even in the very Labour South Wales?
https://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/10/tories-sold-320bn-of-council-homes.html
Answer me this. Where are the children of the householders of the valleys going to live then? In flats and houses on the private rented market? For there’ll be little else if all the former council property is sold under RTB. We’ll be back to 1890, slums and all.
What a future to look forward to for the sake of benefitting a few. What a short sighted policy. Council housing was begun to fulfill a need and that need has not gone away, if anything it has increased. Yet if we follow your prescription those in need of truly affordable housing, and by that I mean housing they can afford and not that provided at 80% of market rents, will be left to fend for themselves.
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Mizzentop
18 November 2011 7:38PM
But the point is that people who are poor enough to live in council housing are usually not financially able to buy a property on the open market. If it wasn’t for RTB they would[n’t] have had an opportunity to enter the world of private ownership. This is why it IS a fantastic example of social mobility. Your argument that it isn’t fair because not everyone benefits, just those who were Council tenants is rather strange. Thats a bit like saying that Housing Benefit isn’t fair because not everyone receives it. If it’s necessary to prove that a policy has to benefit everyone in the country before it is implemented, then nothing would ever happen! What is clear is that RTB was available to MILLIONS of people who were / are by definition, not very well off. You clearly think that it would have been better to deny these people this opportunity but still regard yourself as someone who supports the poor? You clearly believe these people warrant support on your terms, not theirs.
A large part of your argument seems to be that if Council houses are sold where will the next generation of poor people live? Well, you seem to ignore the fact that council houses were never temporary housing that people lived in for a few years before moving into the private sector. Most lived in the house for life. So, why is it fine for someone to live in the house for life if its publically owned, but not if its privately owned? They are the same residents.
Don’t forget as well that whilst Local Authorities don’t usually build houses directly now, private developers are obliged to build social housing as part of private estates (15 – 20% usually). These are sold at cost price or even given for free by the developers (as a condition of Planning consent) to Housing Associations who rent or sell (often shared equity) to the present generation of social housing applicants.
Oh it was that alright, if you throw money at people they’re hardly going to turn it down are they? But it was the beginning of the end of council housing, and this you apparently regard as good thing? Even in the very Labour South Wales?
I still stand by the central thrust of my argument; that you consider it desirable for poor people to live as dependents of the State rather than have something of their own to aspiure to. I can’t come to terms with that. You are clearly disgusted by these people taking the opportunity to own a stake in society so they can start to live more independently, but are quite happy to see them subsidised for life and kept in their box. Agai, support on YOUR terms not THEIRS.
And yes – I do consider the end of Council Housing to be good. Those soulless estates which nobody took pride in were not a shining beacon of social progress. Private ownership gives people pride and interest in their surroundings in a way that public ownership clearly never can. Those estates also stigmatised poverty, labelling those who lived there as social failures, clearly dependent on the state. With so many of them now in private ownership, stigma levels have fallen. The current policy of mixing social housing with private housing is a big step forward in social equality.
You won’t convince me, I’m afraid, that labelling people as “poor” and patronising them rather than helping them to improve their lot, is a good idea. Likewise, I’m sure your mind is closed on the issue, but please do not imagine for a moment that your politics of envy are shared by the majority. No general election since the early 1970’s has seen a majority vote for such old fashioned and inhumane ideas. We all deserve the opportunity to aspire, to improve our lot whatever start we have. RTB dropped the ladder of opportunity into the lowest financial class and the fact that so people started climbing is fantastic. Your mean-spirited attitude that their lives should be dictated to by the State with no freedom to get on in life is appalling.
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Piecesofeight
18 November 2011 9:45PM
@Mizzentop
Let’s get a few things out of the way first shall we before I tackle your long reply.
First of all council housing is not and has not for a long time been subsidised. The residents of council housing are not living in subsidised housing, they are paying their way.
The prime minister seems to misunderstand the economics of council housing when he refers to it as “subsidised” (Suspect’s mother could lose home, 13 August). The biggest subsidies over the past 30 years have been to owner-occupiers in the form of mortgage interest tax relief (formerly), exemption from capital gains tax and huge value-stimulating house purchase lending that we have all subsidised to the tune of £1tr or more when it led to bail-out of the banks. In addition, private landlords have been subsidised by a large part of the increases in housing benefit, to about £25bn a year, which passes straight through to subsidise rents. By contrast, between 1990 and 2004 council tenants suffered a “reverse subsidy” by the abstraction of some £13bn from housing revenue accounts.
Peter Ambrose Visiting professor of housing and health, University of Brighton, Stephen Battersby President, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, Peter Archer Chairman, Care and Repair, Rev Paul Nicolson Chairman, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust
https://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/15/camerons-law-crackdown-price
Secondly, those that are working and not claiming any benefits are not, to use your phrase dependents of the State.
Now moving on to the bulk of reply you’ve started very badly.
But the point is that people who are poor enough to live in council housing are usually not financially able to buy a property on the open market. If it wasn’t for RTB they would have had an opportunity to enter the world of private ownership.
You’re making the same mistake that David Cameron makes in presuming that people who live in council houses want to buy and become property owners. Some do, many do not. What is wrong with renting for life if it suits the residents? They ought to be free to do so and that’s what used to happen before the Tory attack on council tenants from 1979 onwards. I have shown above that council rents are not subsidised and so people who live in a council house, work, do not claim benefits and pay the rent have a perfect right to stay there for life if they so choose, and not to be obliged to buy.
Your argument that it isn’t fair because not everyone benefits, just those who were Council tenants is rather strange. Thats a bit like saying that Housing Benefit isn’t fair because not everyone receives it.
This is completely wrong. You are ignoring the fact that to sell council houses at a discount is giving away a state asset whereas paying housing benefit is something funded from taxation, it is “pay as you go” to coin a phrase. In fact the one has been the cause of the other because were there still sufficient council houses available, not sold under RTB then we would not have reached the position where vast sums of money were being transferred directly from the exchequer to private landlords, money better spent on building new council houses.
What is clear is that RTB was available to MILLIONS of people who were / are by definition, not very well off.
Let’s get this out of the way shall we? I worked in and around council estates in the late 1970s both as a carpenter and as a peripatetic visitor, the range of people and incomes at that time was wide and some of them would have been offended to have been described as “not very well off”. It was ok then to live in council property almost regardless of your income, it was seen as housing for all, for anybody who wanted it.
Your entire argument in this thread is based on council housing being the housing of last resort, a very narrow definition brought about almost entirely by RTB and the lack of building new council housing in the last three decades. It wasn’t always like that.
You clearly think that it would have been better to deny these people this opportunity but still regard yourself as someone who supports the poor? You clearly believe these people warrant support on your terms, not theirs.
No, again no. It’s not about me wishing to deny anybody an opportunity to better themselves, the open market was always there, it’s about the REDUCTION in housing for those coming after them, their children, their friends and neighbours children, the next generation, people moving into their area for work, anybody in need of accommodation at a reasonable price.
I’m beginning to think you have never been in the position of needing accommodation at a reasonable price because of your obvious lack of understanding of the need.
continues…
Piecesofeight
18 November 2011 10:03PM
@Mizzentop
I have, I moved to London at the age of 17 with nothing to my name and living in the spare room of a friend. Years later I managed to get the keys to a 2 bed council flat as a single man, try that now!
It’s not just the poor, the needy, the welfare dependent who need housing, it’s anybody without a roof over their head, or in poor quality housing. Please try to take off those blinkers will you? It’s not all about the Welsh valleys, lovely as they are.
A large part of your argument seems to be that if Council houses are sold where will the next generation of poor people live? Well, you seem to ignore the fact that council houses were never temporary housing that people lived in for a few years before moving into the private sector. Most lived in the house for life. So, why is it fine for someone to live in the house for life if its publically owned, but not if its privately owned? They are the same residents.
No my entire argument is about the loss of housing stock under RTB which is not being replaced. Replacements under S106 let at “affordable” rents are a scandalous deception and nothing to do with housing at cost, as council houses were, but bringing the market into social housing which is evil. It is completely against the original intention of council housing which was not built for profit but simply to house people.
To suggest that I don’t realise that people renting council housing won’t will want to live there for life is patronising rubbish. In my previous post I have referred exactly to that and why shouldn’t they? Why should they feel obliged to buy and fall into the trap of paying vast leasehold charges for maintenance or becoming the dispossessed when an estate is regenerated and the tenants get rehoused by law but the leaseholders are left to rot, is that justice?
Don’t forget as well that whilst Local Authorities don’t usually build houses directly now, private developers are obliged to build social housing as part of private estates (15 – 20% usually). These are sold at cost price or even given for free by the developers (as a condition of Planning consent) to Housing Associations who rent or sell (often shared equity) to the present generation of social housing applicants.
This is a sick joke. First of all they can and do get out of it now by paying a lump sum to the local authority, secondly what they build is poor quality housing owing to the drop in space standards since Parker Morris was abandoned in 1980, and thirdly these things are let at near market rents.
These are in no way an equivalent to the council housing lost, would that they were. Read my post on Woods House some time would you? Find it via my profile link. Absolutely dreadful S106 rubbish.
I still stand by the central thrust of my argument; that you consider it desirable for poor people to live as dependents of the State rather than have something of their own to aspire to. I can’t come to terms with that. You are clearly disgusted by these people taking the opportunity to own a stake in society so they can start to live more independently, but are quite happy to see them subsidised for life and kept in their box. Agai, support on YOUR terms not THEIRS.
They are not living as dependents of the state where council housing still exists, they are paying a rent that produces a surplus. If they receive benefits of some kind then that’s different issue and if the proportion of people receiving benefits on a council estate is higher than those in the surrounding area then that may well be a problem to be tackled but in terms of this discussion about council housing, they are perfectly content where they are paying their way, and not feeling the need to “own a stake in society”.
And yes – I do consider the end of Council Housing to be good. Those soulless estates which nobody took pride in were not a shining beacon of social progress. Private ownership gives people pride and interest in their surroundings in a way that public ownership clearly never can. Those estates also stigmatised poverty, labelling those who lived there as social failures, clearly dependent on the state.
If you consider the end of council housing to be good then you clearly don’t understand the reason for its existence. Read Lynsey Hanley’s Estates or similar.
Again you’re making sweeping generalisations.
Those soulless estates which nobody took pride in
That’s a lazy line which ignores history. The estates have gone through a process which is too long to go into here but you can read some of it via my blog if you like (follow the link) or elsewhere, do your own research, suffice to say they were loved as replacements for slums when they were built but for various reasons some have had a chequered history, partly owing to RTB.
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Mizzentop
18 November 2011 10:38PM
Piecesofeight
Don’t have time right now to address your reply (I believe you described my previous post as long!) but here’s one point that jumped out as inaccurate beyond doubt – absolute fact:-
This is a sick joke. First of all they can and do get out of it now by paying a lump sum to the local authority, secondly what they build is poor quality housing owing to the drop in space standards since Parker Morris was abandoned in 1980, and thirdly these things are let at near market rents.
Even small developments of 20 or so units now have about 20% affordables. the idea that the money just gets paid over to disappear elsewhere just isn’t true. These ARE let at subsidised rents and offer ranges of options based upon equity share. The idea that these can somehow be built at a substandard quality just isn’t true.
I say again, the old council houses aren’t being “lost” – the people are just living in them now as owners, not tenants. If the tenants didn’t want to buy, they didn’t have to.
I get out plenty – in and out of plenty of Council houses as part of my job actually. I’ve no problem in helping people up. The assumption about people in the Council estates being “bottom of the heap” is true financially (by definition). I make no social or other assumption. You’d rather pay people Housing Benefit forever with no hope, I’d rather sell them their house at a discount to give them a stake in society.
I will now take to my bed and feel relief that you aren’t running the Country!
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Piecesofeight
19 November 2011 10:18AM
@Mizzentop
The current policy of mixing social housing with private housing is a big step forward in social equality.
At last we agree on something, in fact that’s the only sentence in your entire output today with which I agree, in that the mistakes of the Modernist architects and estate management have been recognised such that on the best new estates, council and social rented flats are indistinguishable from private flats and houses, and a good thing too.
You won’t convince me, I’m afraid, that labeling people as “poor” and patronising them rather than helping them to improve their lot, is a good idea. Likewise, I’m sure your mind is closed on the issue, but please do not imagine for a moment that your politics of envy are shared by the majority.
I’m not labelling people as poor, you are. My experience of the estates was of a mixed income group, not the result we see today following right to buy and a desperate allocations policy.
I think you are wrong to say that my mind is closed on the issue, far from it, I am ready to consider all the arguments it’s just that I strongly disagree with yours.
Mine are not the politics of envy, that’s a cheap phrase the right use to attack the left and you are no less guilty of it.
No general election since the early 1970’s has seen a majority vote for such old fashioned and inhumane ideas.
Is council housing “old fashioned and inhumane? Which planet are you living on?
We all deserve the opportunity to aspire, to improve our lot whatever start we have. RTB dropped the ladder of opportunity into the lowest financial class and the fact that so people started climbing is fantastic. Your mean-spirited attitude that their lives should be dictated to by the State with no freedom to get on in life is appalling.
No, RTB dropped the ladder of opportunity to the few at the expense of the many. I am not mean spirited, you are mistaken, and while we will never agree I shall continue to support council housing as it was for most of the last century and not the Frankenstein monster it has become under recent initiatives.
It seems to me that the whole ethos of creating a bridge over the chasm which is being on the lower end of the economic scale has been lost and that now one has to jump, or increasingly be left behind.
Lastly, your various comments about being glad I’m not or will never be in power are insulting and ignorant rubbish. Nobody was suggesting that either myself or you would be in power, we are discussing aspects of housing.
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Mizzentop
19 November 2011 6:05PM
Response to Piecesofeight, 19 November 2011 10:21AMPiecesofeight
It was good sparring with you. I just believe that we can only move forward through giving people the opportunity to have an individual stake in society which gives responsibility and aspiration.I think its a good idea to effectively give people a one-off subsidy (discount) when buying their house while you believe in subsidising them for life with cheaper rents. In practical terms, both mean that people have a roof over their head for life, but if they become owner-occupiers they have incentive to improve and look after the property whilst also feeling they have a stake in society rather than being kept below a glass ceiling.
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Piecesofeight
19 November 2011 7:09PM
@Mizzentop
I think its a good idea to effectively give people a one-off subsidy (discount) when buying their house while you believe in subsidising them for life with cheaper rents.
I can’t let you get away with that. You are using the modern disingenuous form of the word subsidy which means not making a profit, or making a reduced profit. I have made it perfectly clear to you in several posts that council housing not only pays for itself but produces a surplus which the government takes.
Please do not deliberately twist my words.
I do not believe in subsidising anybody for life. I do however believe in supporting those unable to support themselves but we’re not discussing that.
You are either much younger than I am, or lived through the 1970s with your head down. Council housing did, and can work successfully, without subsidy, without mayhem, or anti-social behaviour, and with the residents free to live without the pressure to buy.
It is apparent to me that you, like David Cameron are attempting to force upon the residents of council property the decision to buy, or bribe them in order they give up their tenancy to take on ownership of the property with all that brings, again see my previous posts.
So long as you go on describing council housing as subsidised you are revealing yourself as unable to comprehend the idea of a housing service provided at cost, and this wilful blindness does you no favours in my eyes.
It would appear that you have managed to read all my long posts while failing utterly to understand that there is room in society for housing provided at cost and not for profit. This did, in the past, and still does to some extent provide a service in that it forms the lower few rungs of the ladder of life.
Right to buy destroys this because unless replacements are built to the same standard, in the same area, for the same rent, then that service is removed. Which is what happened in the 1980s and 90s and is apparently about to happen again.
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