RichM

Quality work webmaster, this site is a total gem. Aiming to buy you a drink at the next meet! RichM

I totally agree that there is now an underclass. While I think that the term "chav" or "pikey" is grossly offensive (it is as bad as racist derogatory terms), it will hopefully get the message home that there are millions of people in the UK who have fallen behind and have no aspirations or responsibility beyond collecting their benefits and buying stuff. I would agree that racism and class prejudice may have played a role in the creation of this order, but "new" labour's focus on these factors is massively overstated, and an attempt to shift blame for society's ills on to the tories. The fact is the welfare state is thoroughly destructive of people's self-respect, it encourages laziness and lack of responsibility, and is a complete anachronism. It was created for the 1950s when innumerable veterans were coming out of WWII and still had a sensible work ethic. Now people think they are entitled to have as many children as they like while on benefits while other folk pay for it. I never thought I would experience this but I am quite frankly angry at the extent to which my and my wife's taxes subsidise other people's families, while we are unable to start one of our own. The total undermining of the family by successive governments has been appalling; the state is now the second parent to far too many children. The rise of the victim mentality, and the "It's not my fault, it's racism/Thatcher/coming from a broken home/the drugs/the booze/underfunded state schooling/the middle classes that did this to me" attitude (and, I would recognise, many white people blaming immigration and political correctness, rather than sorting themselves out) are simply pitiful, and a great social evil. If my dad had had the opportunity to go to sixth form college after his secondary modern education, he would have had a real chance in life. Today, despite having access to free education up to age 18, a provision that other countries dream of having, plenty of people now waste their time and the nation's taxes. What gets to me most of all is the idea that the glorious social deomcracy that Blair et al. are trying to build is just and will benefit all. It isn't and it won't. It involves stealing from those who are productive and work and giving to those who do not wish to work or need to have their hand held throughout their lives. It gives too many people the message that they are helpless victims, when the UK has never had so much opportunity available. I really laughed when in Barcelona earlier this year. They love banging on about how socialist they are in Catalonia. Frankly, I would love some of this Catalonian socialism - if you refuse a job three times no benefits, and they will laugh at you if you are pregnant and expect a flat and benefits. Taxes? About 15%, plus some taxation on possessions like flats, second homes, cars, etc. I may have the details wrong, but the emphasis there is totally different. The expectation is that you will work, that you will get decent healthcare and a pension, but that otherwise you have support your family. If Labour stood on a similar platform, they'd get my vote. More likely, as the poster above suggests, the economy will nosedive and people will let the Tories slash public spending. I feel a bit better now...

Unless GB is going to lay off about 100K public sector workers and slash taxes across the board come March, as well as drop IRs by a percent, there's not much he can do. At some point we've just got to take our medicine... Funny how earlier in the year there was pressure on the government to build shed loads more homes. Before long people will be begging the government to knock a few hundred thousand down!

I was always scared that I had got it wrong, that I should have jumped on the ladder in January when I had the chance, that this was a new paradigm. Yes, all sense of reason cried "bubble!", but the pessimist in me muttered "rent misery for life". I guess it is difficult sticking to one's guns when all around are saying buy now, buy somewhere etc etc, the sheer ballsof having to go against the flow can be pretty scary at times. The thing is bears are right and the world is beginning to wake up to the fact. I am fairly surprised how quickly it has all happened. But we have now turned a corner and are well and truly in the "wait and see" phase, just as so many here predicted. It's quite uncanny how well people have got it right. The scene is now set for a fall. The drop in prices is clearly in the pipeline. It really is occurring before our eyes!

yeah, you've got a point. they have proved how totally untrustworthy they are countless times. i am just surprised the bbc haven't ripped it wide open. but then they're a pretty complacent institution as well i guess.

The thing is these EAs, banks, etc etc keep banging on about slowdown, static prices, no fall in prices. When the public see even a minor fall - in contrast to the years of steep rises - the vested interests just won't be credible anymore and people will cotton on. I am surprised that one of the more independent news outlets hasn't really torn apart some of the housing myths. Some bright young thing on a major television station will at some point i'm sure

Springtime for bullish-bears, and S-T-R, Winter for landlords, and Brown!... (sung to the tune of the main theme from "the producers") Nope, spring will be when the hard data comes to light and the masses realise what anecdote has been saying for months. I am looking forward to hot tabloid action!

It's the one thing they have to get right...

Perhaps they have introduced the horror stories to show they are in touch with the market - sentiment is now changing very quickly...

no, i agree with the smashing of the unions bit, that was right on! no, she should have done more to help establish more forward thinking industries that would have been competitive. i disagree with her developing the financial industries at the expense of manufacturing. it's seems obvious to me that the two aren't mutually exclusive. i guess her hatred for the unions blinded her in that sense. i guess that the wide availability of credit has been problematic, but then she must have overestimated people's intelligence! credit is helpful to an economy to some extent of course. people's studpidity/greed is hardly something thatcher created.

'great: a statistical sample of one. how representative. And self-selecting too: do you think a property-mad homeowner would be on a website called houseprice CRASH? No, me neither. Your wife has a point, RichM. Your political rantings are extremely ill-formulated.' sorry zz, I am not sure what you getting at with the "sample of one" thing. it wasn't much of a rant, just a standard centre-right criticism of labour spending plans. it might not have been all that balanced; i do think that thatcher should have supported the growth of more efficient manufacturing that could stand on its own two feet. whether that would have been possible i don't know. I do feel that far too many people t'up north were left in the lurch. given the grip of the unions i don't think any compromise would have been possible. perhaps thatcher simply didn't have the will.

IMO, if it weren't for Thatcher we'd still be subsidising armies of people in non-jobs, slowly watching our wealth trickle away. The situation today is yet another case of the socialists stealing our nation's prosperity for more non-jobs while introducing rampant asset inflation to pay for it all. Incidentally my wife is sat here sighing. She thinks: "what has happened to my nusband since he statred to read the telegraph and this website?I alwya thought i'd marry a nice socialist boy." well, at least right-wingers allow freedom of speech, my dear. Bless her, she is lovely, despite the leftism.

Lads, lads, cam down, cam down! [/scouse] The key thing is this can't continue. People won't have to storm the houses of parliament or anything. A recession will come along, the pain will intensify for a while for quite a few people, but hopefully we will have learnt the lesson. Oh, and property will nose dive, of course. Hopefully, we will have realised that you can't base an economy on debt and house prices. Well we can hope...

He's a spoof, let him be I say. He's still not as funny as hooog from housepricecrash.com

I have often thought that. I live in South London. Down my street 6 townhouses all just on the market, look nice and well made (Victorian style), shame no gardens(!!!), 450K each. Hmm...

I was just wondering if they had managed to increase their housing stock. I had assumed that there was in part a housing shortage in Japan, particularly in the cities. Perhaps there wasn't a shortage at all. But I am guessing that plenty of people there still don't own a home.

Thanks for the link. I loved this paragraph about Trellick tower: 'Today, the Tower can be seen as something of a last stand by high-rise architects. It was Goldfinger's last commission, and for many years his least popular. In true Modernist fashion, Goldfinger's Tower paid little heed to its surroundings- it dwarves nearby buildings, and its Brutalist concrete exterior makes it even more striking. It is a building which also paid little attention to the worries about Modernist housing in the late 1960s.' For "brutalist" read bloody ugly! The architect slagging off the inhabitants of his creation in a later paragraph was funny. I really think all high rises are ugly. I would live in the Chrysler, or any other 'sky-scraper' that had an ounce of class, bud sadly pretty much every every tower block in the UK i've seen is pants. I really can't see any government now investing in social housing on any large scale. It's just too much of a hassle for them, and let's face it, they can't run very much. Housing associations can take on decent building projects, but on how grand a scale I am not sure. The key is the planning, surely. It kacks me off to think that parts of some cities are complete squalor while so much land lays unused not that far away. Taxing unused inner-city land has to be a good idea as well. Having said all that, how comes the Japanese haven't built themselves out of any problems? I would be interested in hearing anything about how they practically responded to the crazy property market of the late 1980s, outside of the bvious monetary action.

Good work team!

Sorry chaps, I meant to say 24,800 pounds. I originally thought of saying 25k, but then thought "no, let's be accurate", put the comma in and the remaining figures, forgot to ditch the k. sorry about that. it would have been great if i had earnt more than the landlords though, wouldn't it? instead i am so average it is painful. at least i don't drive a mondeo, or live in the home counties. incidentally, i have about 4.5K in student loans yet to pay; had to delay it for doing my postgrad. the wife has even more but at least she's a proper doctor, i.e. she prescribes drugs.

24,800 all in. A really nice wife, friends, and good health!

1 or 2 Kings?

Yes, small is beautiful, no doubt. You don't need to have studied much occupational psychology to realise that! (I haevn't by the way). Am pleased you are doing well for yuorself, you derserve it. In a few years we will realise that we need to be developing high-tehch industries more and then you will be in a growth area I hope. What would help our engineering/manufactuering sectors, do you think? Are there enough graduates? I suspect there is a lack of bottle on the part of investors - producing soemthing is a bit scary, I know let's do property instead...

The key was doing a PhD at a good institution, I had my fair share of luck in getting it! It is a degree that can vary an awful lot. Many people fail to realise that it doesn't concern Freud and literary nonsense all that much, but as an academic discipline involves a lot of advanced statistics and good knowledge of scientific method. You do get your fair share of social-constructionists (i.e. mental illness is just labelling, there is no biological basis to gender, etc, etc), but they're widely recognised as muppets and kept out of the decent unis. Cognitive psychology is pretty advanced and has led to lajor advances in mental health, ergonomics, and is playing an increasingly significant role in the neurosciences. Plenty of mates do loads of MRI analysis work, which is very sophisticated. I actually think it's a good degree for the jobs market. Numeracy and literacy skills required, relevant subject matter to a number of fields. I graduated in 2000 from a "red-brick" uni in the midlands; plenty of people I know (i.e. the ones who went to the library, showed up for lectures, were there to work, etc) got pretty good jobs. It's the former-polys I worry about. These are important institutions, no doubt, and you do get very good inidividuals coming out from there (I know a few PhDs, for instance), but they should really stick to more vocational and shorter-term or part-time courses. It's such a shame that young people opt for "easy" subjects - ones where they can just give their opinions rather than pushing their intellect and understanding. I think the government should vary the fees students pay according to the usefulness of the subject and the quality of the institution. Why oh why an enginerring student at Cambridge pays the same as a media studies student at UEL I don't know...

There's a pun in the last one by the way...

My headline would be "Brown quits over recession crisis". Or maybe even better "Blair swizz project: 3.6M house down 50%"