British PM May calls for early election on June 8

[7by7]

7 minutes ago, Grouse said:

The revenues from sales are NOT ring fenced for replacement public housing

 You are out of date.

 

One of the arguments against right to buy when it was first extended by Thatcher was that the money could not be used to build new social housing. An argument with which I agreed as whilst I had no objections to right to buy per se, it had after all existed since the 19th century, I did, and still do, believe that the money raised should be used to build replacement homes.

 

That is not now the case: although there is still room for improvement as not all of the money is used for social housing; which it should be. From January 2015: Treasury grabs £358m of Right to Buy receipts

 

This is the fault of the way right to buy operates; not of the principle itself.

[SheungWan]

54 minutes ago, Grouse said:

The revenues from sales are NOT ring fenced for replacement public housing

 

Human nature mitigates against your opinion. The strongest urge known to humans is not the urge to bear down during childbirth; it's to upgrade! Move to the right side of the tracks! They don't put bay windows in council 'ouses!

 

I reckon the urge to move up to Georgian windows and net curtains is a key societal engine. Making modest housing unaffordable is a key element in Brexiteer dissatisfaction with life, the EU and everything ?

 

There are plenty of ex-council houses with bay windows installed. As for Georgian windows what on earth are they? Certainly not the windows in genuine Georgian houses which are predominantly sash windows and the houses themselves are over 150 years old with high maintenance and now costing in London north of 2m. Aspirational for the professional classes and definitely not 'modest'.

[Grouse]

52 minutes ago, SheungWan said:

There are plenty of ex-council houses with bay windows installed. As for Georgian windows what on earth are they? Certainly not the windows in genuine Georgian houses which are predominantly sash windows and the houses themselves are over 150 years old with high maintenance and now costing in London north of 2m. Aspirational for the professional classes and definitely not 'modest'.

I'm old enough to remember when all of us Brits understood irony ?

 

Typical "Barrett" new homes have Georgian Windows: Golden ratio panes in a golden ratio frame with tiny gap double gazing and made from softwood! 

 

The bay windows comment is a reference to the old retort from the circumferencially challenged that they " don't put bay windows in council 'ouses" ( I may be portly but I have money)

 

Seriously, selling off public housing is a major error and a smack in the teeth to our forbears 

Edited April 21, 2017 by Grouse

[SheungWan]

1 hour ago, Grouse said:

I'm old enough to remember when all of us Brits understood irony ?

 

Typical "Barrett" new homes have Georgian Windows: Golden ratio panes in a golden ratio frame with tiny gap double gazing and made from softwood! 

 

The bay windows comment is a reference to the old retort from the circumferencially challenged that they " don't put bay windows in council 'ouses" ( I may be portly but I have money)

 

Seriously, selling off public housing is a major error and a smack in the teeth to our forbears 

Those Barrett windows are not the real stuff as per Grade II Listed Georgian houses in eg Islington.The real Georgian sash windows are draughty, rattle and push up heating bills. Right up until into the 1970s a lot of the inner London urban large houses could hardly be given away and that included both Georgian and Victorian houses. A lot of it was used for Council Housing, Housing Associations and private bedsits. The councils allowed a lot of it to rot as they didn't have the money to develop. Thatcher should have allowed Councils to use proceeds from selling off property in prosperous areas to do up their stock in the poorer areas but she didn't. The left-wing mantra of holding on to all public stock doesn't work either. Like it or not inner urban areas are getting improved by injection of private capital which otherwise would not have happened. The one thing that will lift all boats economically is economic growth, but Corbyn is solely focussed on redistribution and tax increases. The Labour Party as it currently led is a greater economic threat than Theresa May and Brexit will be swallowed one way or another. Desperately searching around for a solution which included Corbyn is a total non-starter, so there. I now have to put up with Crittall windows. Don't get me started on that!

[elliss]

                     May  is in disaray , and  lacks  support , from the country and her party.

                    JC.   the people  against  the establishment , whatever  next .?  Total  chaos .

                              

[7by7]

5 hours ago, Grouse said:

 

Seriously, selling off public housing is a major error 

 

What percentage of council tenants do you think have ever moved out of their council house and purchased a property privately?

 

How many council tenants do you think could afford to buy their own home without the discounts available to them under the scheme?

 

If the right to buy didn't exist, those properties would still be occupied by someone as council tenants and councils would have less money with which to build new housing stock.

 

But because the right to buy does exist, although those properties are no longer available to let to council tnenats; a substantial amount has been raised for building new council housing stock.

 

So the council loses a home which is, and will continue to be, occupied by someone and gains the money needed help them build more homes for more people.

 

Whilst you may be opposed to the principle of allowing those who can't afford to buy their own home in any other way to buy their council house, surely you can see that allowing them the right to do so is not an error per se, and that opposition to or support of it is more a political opinion than anything else?

 

5 hours ago, Grouse said:

and a smack in the teeth to our forbears 

Which forebears?

 

As already said, the right to buy has existed since the 19th century; since the beginnings of affordable housing for the less well off being provided by local and county councils in fact!

 

Before that there was no right to buy because there was no council housing!

Edited April 21, 2017 by 7by7

[onthesoi]

31 minutes ago, 7by7 said:

If the right to buy didn't exist, those properties would still be occupied by someone as council tenants and councils would have less money with which to build new housing stock.

 

Given the relative tiny fraction of state housing which now exists...your logic doesn't really compute.

[SheungWan]

1 hour ago, 7by7 said:

 

What percentage of council tenants do you think have ever moved out of their council house and purchased a property privately?

 

How many council tenants do you think could afford to buy their own home without the discounts available to them under the scheme?

 

If the right to buy didn't exist, those properties would still be occupied by someone as council tenants and councils would have less money with which to build new housing stock.

 

But because the right to buy does exist, although those properties are no longer available to let to council tnenats; a substantial amount has been raised for building new council housing stock.

 

So the council loses a home which is, and will continue to be, occupied by someone and gains the money needed help them build more homes for more people.

 

Whilst you may be opposed to the principle of allowing those who can't afford to buy their own home in any other way to buy their council house, surely you can see that allowing them the right to do so is not an error per se, and that opposition to or support of it is more a political opinion than anything else?

 

Which forebears?

 

As already said, the right to buy has existed since the 19th century; since the beginnings of affordable housing for the less well off being provided by local and county councils in fact!

 

Before that there was no right to buy because there was no council housing!

My understanding is that when Thatcher introduced the right to buy, councils were fobidden  to use the proceeds to build more homes. The money had to be used to pay down historic council debt. There was therefore a net run-down in available public housing. Grouse is therefore correct in stating that. Unless someone can point to a net reversal of that policy under the Blair Labour governments the argument still stands. I believe that the Housing Associations have greater flexibility how to dispose of financial gains in selling off housing stock, but a significant amount of new social housing is created by Councils demanding a percentage of social housing to be provided by developers when putting up new developments. Corbyn can make all the promises under the sun re social housing and the NHS and this may enable some provincial city MPs to hold on to their seats, but the implied tax increases threatens growth and pushes back the Labour vote.

Edited April 21, 2017 by SheungWan

[7by7]

1 hour ago, onthesoi said:

 

Given the relative tiny fraction of state housing which now exists...your logic doesn't really compute.

 

Local authority owned housing stock has, indeed, decreased. 

 

Local authority housing statistics: year ending March 2015, England

Quote

Local authorities in England owned 1.64 million dwellings on 1 April 2015, a decrease of 1.5% from the previous year. There has been a decrease from 3.67 million on 1 April 1994 (Chart 1). This is due to Right to Buy sales and large-scale voluntary transfer of local authority stock to Private Registered Providers

Private registered providers are housing associations and other non profit organisations.

 

As can be seen by these figures from Shelter, whilst the number of local authority owned homes decreased between 2003 and 2014, the number owned by housing associations increased.

 

The only conclusion which can be drawn from this with regards to right to buy is that many of those houses which have been lost to the social stock due to right to buy have been replaced.

 

To me, the scandal isn't right to buy; it's the number of empty homes. From Shelter (2014)

Quote

Empty homes

Summary statements

‘There are more than 630,000 empty homes in England.’

‘216,050 of these have been vacant for more than 6 months - the usual definition of an empty home.’

 

An even bigger scandal is that many of these empty homes are owned by local authorities! Scandal of 7,500 council homes lying empty in London.

 

N.B. As can be seen, all the above applies to England; such figures are provided separately for each constituent country of the UK. You are welcome to provide equivalent figures for the other parts of the UK if you wish.

 

 

[7by7]

1 hour ago, SheungWan said:

My understanding is that when Thatcher introduced the right to buy, councils were fobidden  to use the proceeds to build more homes. The money had to be used to pay down historic council debt.

 As said previously, Thatcher didn't introduce the right to buy. What she did was make it compulsory for all councils to offer it; whereas previously it had been up to each individual council whether or not they gave this right to their tenants.

 

Your understanding on the proceeds is correct; but that is no longer the situation. Although not all the proceeds are used to build new homes, a large (though not large enough imho) proportion of them are..

 

See graphic in

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by 7by7

[7by7]

In February the government published a white paper Fixing our broken housing market.

 

Though, obviously, this will now be put on hold until after the election.

 

Plus, of course, it will be abandoned completely if the Tories don't win.

[NanLaew]

20 hours ago, 7by7 said:

Right to buy still exists in all parts of the UK except Scotland, where the SNP abolished it in 2016. A move not met with universal support!

True but to be honest, the Right To Buy was already severely limited with local councils enabled to place arbitrary restrictions on so-called 'pressured' areas where they claimed a pre-existing shortage of government housing. Notable is that a lot of these 'pressured' areas had (and still have) plenty of private housing developments approved and signed off by the same local councils many of which are a comfy wee quorum of SNP and Conservative councilors.

[sandyf]

Of course there has been no time to deal with this since it was announced last year.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/21/britons-abroad-denied-uk-general-election-vote-tories

[Grouse]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39682939

 

This might result in a few seats for UKIP. I support the ban

[dabhand]

Polls out over the weekend.

Opinium- Tory:45% / Labour:26%/ LD-11% / UKIP-9%

ComRes - Tory:50% / Labour:25%/ LD-11% / UKIP-7%

YouGov - 48 / 25 / 12 / 5

Survation - 40 / 29 / 11 / 11

 

It may be that the Survation poll is an outlier. I also believe that this poll is the only telephone based poll - the others being internet based. Maybe the return of the 'shy Tories'?!!

 

Scotland only polls

Survation - SNP-43% / Tory-28% / Lab-18% / LD-9%

Panelbase - 44 / 33 / 13 / 5

 

The Tories in Scotland seem to be hoovering up the brexit votes as well as a high % of the Unionist votes. Labour in real danger of having a complete wipe-out. How the mighty have fallen. The coming weeks will be interesting.  

 

[Grouse]

Interesting stuff for psephologists..

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39655379

Edited April 23, 2017 by Grouse

[dick dasterdly]

2 hours ago, dabhand said:

Polls out over the weekend.

Opinium- Tory:45% / Labour:26%/ LD-11% / UKIP-9%

ComRes - Tory:50% / Labour:25%/ LD-11% / UKIP-7%

YouGov - 48 / 25 / 12 / 5

Survation - 40 / 29 / 11 / 11

 

It may be that the Survation poll is an outlier. I also believe that this poll is the only telephone based poll - the others being internet based. Maybe the return of the 'shy Tories'?!!

 

Scotland only polls

Survation - SNP-43% / Tory-28% / Lab-18% / LD-9%

Panelbase - 44 / 33 / 13 / 5

 

The Tories in Scotland seem to be hoovering up the brexit votes as well as a high % of the Unionist votes. Labour in real danger of having a complete wipe-out. How the mighty have fallen. The coming weeks will be interesting.  

 

I think we've given up on polls....

[SheungWan]

6 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

I think we've given up on polls....

You can be assured the Parties haven't.

[elgordo38]

On 4/19/2017 at 2:50 PM, Nigel Garvie said:

Yes that is broadly my analysis also, some attempt has to be made to go beyond the mud slinging and ask why now? That is the question of the day (Well yesterday).  Despite her repeatedly denying she would call an election, she saw that the simple and simplistic in/out Brexit was never going to happen, and as things came unstuck the the blame would fall on the Tories in 2020, who else can the voters blame?  Forget Corbyn's vomit inducing duplicity on Brexit, I expect he will be long gone after the likely significant loss of seats to come. Ukip are disappearing from view with their Xenophobic filth. May is obviously a nasty piece of work, but stupid she is not.

Yes I agree with your last sentence fully. She is in the cat bird seat. 

[Grouse]

22 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

Yes I agree with your last sentence fully. She is in the cat bird seat. 

Always learn something on here. Apparantly the cat bird is an American species with a similar antipodian variety. Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

[Basil B]

Corbyn out to bribe the voters with four extra holidays per year...

 

The guy just did not put his brain in gear again, yes it would be reasonable to have a few extra day holidays per year he proposed the National Saint days of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

 

But did he not look at the dates and realise there is a big imbalance in the way holidays fall in the UK between the first six months and the last six months, what we really need is a holiday end of October/start of November.

[Grouse]

Insane UKIP

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-candidate-gisela-allen-glasgow-council-bring-back-death-penalty-abolish-lgbt-communities-a7696651.html

 

They make the Con Party look centrist! Who would vote for UKIP? Nobody on TV I'll bet ?

[Basil B]

5 minutes ago, Grouse said:

Insane UKIP

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-candidate-gisela-allen-glasgow-council-bring-back-death-penalty-abolish-lgbt-communities-a7696651.html

 

They make the Con Party look centrist! Who would vote for UKIP? Nobody on TV I'll bet ?

 

Quote

 

General election 2017: UKIP manifesto to pledge a burka ban

UKIP is to include a ban on the full veils worn by some Muslim women as part of its general election manifesto, its leader Paul Nuttall has said.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show Mr Nuttall said wearing a burka or niqab in public was a barrier to integration and a security risk.

Muslim women who defied the ban would face a fine, he suggested.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39682939

 

Thankfully they would be very lucky to get one MP, certainly will not be asked by the Queen to form the next government and I doubt they would be asked by any party to form a coalition.

 

[Khun Han]

17 minutes ago, Basil B said:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39682939

 

Thankfully they would be very lucky to get one MP, certainly will not be asked by the Queen to form the next government and I doubt they would be asked by any party to form a coalition.

 

 

They apparently want to ban sharia courts, but won't ban Jewish courts because we've had them for hundreds of years!?!?

[elgordo38]

1 hour ago, Basil B said:

Corbyn out to bribe the voters with four extra holidays per year...

 

The guy just did not put his brain in gear again, yes it would be reasonable to have a few extra day holidays per year he proposed the National Saint days of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

 

But did he not look at the dates and realise there is a big imbalance in the way holidays fall in the UK between the first six months and the last six months, what we really need is a holiday end of October/start of November.

Yes call the holiday A Day Without Politicians.

[elgordo38]

1 hour ago, Grouse said:

Always learn something on here. Apparantly the cat bird is an American species with a similar antipodian variety. Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

"The catbird seat" is an American English idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties. ... The phrase "In the catbird seat" was among the numerous folksy expressions used by Barber.

[nontabury]

1 hour ago, Basil B said:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39682939

 

Thankfully they would be very lucky to get one MP, certainly will not be asked by the Queen to form the next government and I doubt they would be asked by any party to form a coalition.

 

 I believe she's only standing for the local council,not Westminster,or even the county council in Edinburgh.in fact her affiliation to UKIP is just about zero.

[citybiker]

Insane UKIP
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-candidate-gisela-allen-glasgow-council-bring-back-death-penalty-abolish-lgbt-communities-a7696651.html
 
They make the Con Party look centrist! Who would vote for UKIP? Nobody on TV I'll bet [emoji6]

I've seen this on another forum & insane is rather appropriate and subtle, all very good in making radical suggestions when you know full well you've no chance of implementing them.

The level of idiocy beggars belief, UKIP and Farage are quite correct in mainly focusing on both marginal weaker seats but more importantly ensuring we get a decent Brexit deal for all.


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[Grouse]

56 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

"The catbird seat" is an American English idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties. ... The phrase "In the catbird seat" was among the numerous folksy expressions used by Barber.

Who's barber? My barber never said that ( something for the weekend, sir? Was more usual)

[Grouse]

15 minutes ago, citybiker said:

 

I've seen this on another forum & insane is rather appropriate and subtle, all very good in making radical suggestions when you know full well you've no chance of implementing them.

The level of idiocy beggars belief, UKIP and Farage are quite correct in mainly focusing on both marginal weaker seats but more importantly ensuring we get a decent Brexit deal for all.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I'm amazed they're so rational!