Renters in marginal constituencies have abandoned the Tories

[Bear Goggles]

26 minutes ago, MARTINX9 said:

I don't hold out much hope with the Tories either but what exactly is Labour going to do to deal with the housing crisis? Labour runs housing in London - they can't get the cash out the door and developers are just carrying on as before focusing on profitability not volume.

Still I suppose a Corbyn government is more likely to cause a house price crash in the short term.

In the short term, better security of tenure for renters is the obvious one. Would have the added effect of discouraging BTL thereby potentially reducing demand for starter homes and flats. 

TBH I think that's coming anyway, but Labour are likely to do it more quickly and aggressively.

[macca13]

I’m voting Labour next time for the first time ever! The entire Tory front bench are Landlords and Philip Hammond owns a house building company, land and BTLeech.. 

The chances of fair, fit for human inhabitation, affordable housing is “0” under the CONservatives.. they want us in the gutter to line their greedy pockets! 

[Lurkerbelow]

1 hour ago, Bear Goggles said:

In the short term, better security of tenure for renters is the obvious one. Would have the added effect of discouraging BTL thereby potentially reducing demand for starter homes and flats. 

TBH I think that's coming anyway, but Labour are likely to do it more quickly and aggressively.

Agreed.  For example Lab promised at their conference that they'd legislate to force Landlords to insulate their properties without any compensation or help for the costs.   The Tories would never do something like that.  The Labour party on the whole doesn't like Landords (though some of their MP's are a different matter entirely - here's hoping they go through with deselecting don't demonize landlords Chris Leslie)

[mrtickle]

2 minutes ago, Lurkerbelow said:

(though some of their MP's are a different matter entirely - here's hoping they go through with deselecting don't demonize landlords Chris Leslie)

Yep. He should be gone please, along with the unrepentant Owen Smith and Chuka Umunna. All slimy pieces of work.

 

[Lurkerbelow]

6 minutes ago, mrtickle said:

Yep. He should be gone please, along with the unrepentant Owen Smith and Chuka Umunna. All slimy pieces of work.

 

I don't know anything about Owen Smith, but Chuka Umunna has always come across to me as a real nasty piece of work.   Only in it for himself.

[Trump Invective]

Hopefully there won't be a general election for ages. In the meantime the Tories can ruin the economy and everyone's lives, a side effect of this being a hpc. Then the blame is squarely with them, no passing the buck. Labour must be insane to want to take over at present.

[grasshopper]

10 hours ago, macca13 said:

I’m voting Labour next time for the first time ever! The entire Tory front bench are Landlords and Philip Hammond owns a house building company, land and BTLeech.

Yes I think property and land ownership is hard wired into the Conservative psyche. But it is pretty obvious and they know that there is a housing crisis. I find it hard to believe that the most successful democratic party in the world will not come up with a comprehensive plan to alleviate the situation both from a social and political perspective.

[spyguy]

12 hours ago, papag said:

Well ... the lending rules/cost have changed  - for LL.

An OO can borrow money cheaper than a LL - which is normal scheme of things.

The gormless regulation and lending that allowed LL to borrow for an IO mortgage at less than OO are long gone.

 

[spyguy]

11 hours ago, macca13 said:

I’m voting Labour next time for the first time ever! The entire Tory front bench are Landlords and Philip Hammond owns a house building company, land and BTLeech.. 

The chances of fair, fit for human inhabitation, affordable housing is “0” under the CONservatives.. they want us in the gutter to line their greedy pockets! 

Heres comrade Chris, leading light of the lunatic Corbyn team

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-news/derby-mp-chris-williamson-admits-1068348

Most MPs have 2nd homes as they live in the sticks and work in London.

Laboury type are much more likely to slumlords than Cons.

 

 

[spyguy]

8 hours ago, Trump Invective said:

Hopefully there won't be a general election for ages. In the meantime the Tories can ruin the economy and everyone's lives, a side effect of this being a hpc. Then the blame is squarely with them, no passing the buck. Labour must be insane to want to take over at present.

Ah, tes that old 'Trying to pick when you are elected'

No choice, you go for each election. A party cannot pick and choose which elections to win FFS.

 

[papag]

1 hour ago, spyguy said:

Well ... the lending rules/cost have changed  - for LL.

An OO can borrow money cheaper than a LL - which is normal scheme of things.

The gormless regulation and lending that allowed LL to borrow for an IO mortgage at less than OO are long gone.

 

Yep I know but maybe there are ways and means of getting around the rules , the Labour MP for Derby  may give some guidance on moving around the rules .

 

[Trump Invective]

9 hours ago, spyguy said:

Ah, tes that old 'Trying to pick when you are elected'

No choice, you go for each election. A party cannot pick and choose which elections to win FFS.

 

Labour don't have to pick, but they keep in insisting on a general election. The Tories are happy to have on in the 2020s. Why bother pushing now when it's an awful time to take over?

[msi]

As much as I want change, I want the tories until 2021 so they can carry the can / take credit * for brexit.

 

The Tories have lost their way - no longer interested in giving everyone a fair crack at the game. TBH I don't think it was truly in their blood, the schisms from the rabid right of the party are laughable.

Labour want to stop the game, but capitalism is the only game that works - not the fake elitist stuff we have where gains are hidden but losses shared. The problem with stopping the game is that 1) Too many noses put out of joint and you need a lot of muscle to keep that quiet, 2) Eventually you need another game.

 

*delete as appropriate

Edited September 30, 2018 by msi
forgot to explain the asterix

[No One]

On 28/09/2018 at 16:43, Bear Goggles said:

Well, only the death of the Tory party in its current incarnation, in the same way that New Labour has already died. There is absolutely room for a non-socialist narrative for solving the housing issue, but it involves ditching the "flexible rental market" and "house is my pension" narratives, and the current Tory leadership are not (yet) willing to do that because their over 65 voter base would baulk at any real alternatives. 

A more traditional conservative approach would consider homes to be fundamental to a good family life, and secure housing for the majority as being essential to developing and maintaining a nation of upstanding citizens. Speculation and investing in homes would be frowned upon as attacking that principle, housing ownership and tenancy models could be reformed to suit people in different sections of society. Remember, traditional conservatism doesn't seek to turn everyone into a self-sufficient aspirational social climber, it tries to ensure everyone is happy with their place in society and not getting upperty socialist ideas about overthrowing the stats quo.

The current Tory policy is a leftover from the neoliberal ideal of the property owning democracy (a noble ideal in itself it should be said), but the property owning democracy was unable to disentangle itself with the libertarian free market ideal of the speculator and rent seeker as hero entrepreneur, and here we are - an entire generation priced-out of secure housing by predatory finance and BTL spivs. Once the Tories accept that the old dream is over, and that shouting "Venezuela!" at anyone suggesting an alternative isn't going to hold back the inevitable, I'm sure a more traditional conservative approach to housing will emerge from the right.

 

Excellent post.

 

I'd like to add a few more points:

 

-End foreign buyers (not to be confused with banning foreigners, I'm talking offshore trusts in Hong Kong where properties are traded like stocks, without the owners ever even seeing the houses they buy)

-End BTL mortgages

-Tax third, fourth and fifth homes into oblivion

-Change the planing permission and council act of 1964 to allow locals to buy and build on farmland as they see fit (for themselves not speculation)

-End IO loans

-Tighten lending criteria

[dougless]

1 hour ago, No One said:

Excellent post.

 

I'd like to add a few more points:

 

-End foreign buyers (not to be confused with banning foreigners, I'm talking offshore trusts in Hong Kong where properties are traded like stocks, without the owners ever even seeing the houses they buy)

-End BTL mortgages

-Tax third, fourth and fifth homes into oblivion

-Change the planing permission and council act of 1964 to allow locals to buy and build on farmland as they see fit (for themselves not speculation)

-End IO loans

-Tighten lending criteria

All good points and all these changes are urgently needed.  I would limit sale of aforementioned development of agricultural land for your own use otherwise it would become a new cash cow.  Perhaps disallow sales for at least twenty years unless the owner died.

[No One]

4 minutes ago, dougless said:

All good points and all these changes are urgently needed.  I would limit sale of aforementioned development of agricultural land for your own use otherwise it would become a new cash cow.  Perhaps disallow sales for at least twenty years unless the owner died.

There are issues with the libertarian approach, I agree.

It has to be a legislation that allowed FTB to self build on the cheap in order to redress the home ownership disparity. Vultures would have to be kept out. Greedy farmers would need to have some checks and balances to make sure they don't end up with the benefit of this system. The core or such legislation is to lower house prices and not enrich those that own land.

The core problem in the UK is the cost of land, where a poorly built new build 3 bed semi costs 230,000 due to the land beneath it taking up 100,000. Making the land negligible, or close to negligible, we have a cost of a new build at 130k. [Rough example]

There is a common myth that the UK is too urbanised, and the green has to be protected. However only 4% of the land is built on for housing, 1% for roads, 1% for factories and offices. [Roughly] Naturally the South has a higher concentration of built up areas. That's true. A lot of the land is taken up by farms, which contrary to popular opinion, are not that good for the environment.

I still don't see why the council such power over what can be built and where. If I own a plot and wish to develop it to build a house (within reason, not polluting the environment and keeping  to safety standards)I don't see why the council and existing residents should have the power to object. What we have now is a system where fat council members are declining building permissions on the first round, to only have them approved the second time round as a means to raise income. Furthermore, big builders are paying bribes under the table to have god awful identity kit estates built up with little parking available, and expensive services attached to the homes. 

In a free(r) market, we would have better value homes, with more distinct designs, more parking and at a cheaper price. It may be hard to believe, but this country built homes prior to the 1964 county council planning permission act.

 

 

Another way to fix this is issue could be to build in a similar way as in the continent, with good quality departments. These don't have to be Brutalist monstrosities. But there is some cultural issues with that approach here.

 

[Wayward]

On ‎29‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 10:53, Ghostly said:

I wouldn't vote for either. I live in a solid Labour area though so I may as well just draw a giant phallus on the ballot paper for all the difference it will make.

Yes with the first past the post system in the UK spoiling your ballet paper is perhaps the best approach for many.

[zugzwang]

15 hours ago, msi said:

As much as I want change, I want the tories until 2021 so they can carry the can / take credit * for brexit.

 

The Tories have lost their way - no longer interested in giving everyone a fair crack at the game. TBH I don't think it was truly in their blood, the schisms from the rabid right of the party are laughable.

Labour want to stop the game, but capitalism is the only game that works - not the fake elitist stuff we have where gains are hidden but losses shared. The problem with stopping the game is that 1) Too many noses put out of joint and you need a lot of muscle to keep that quiet, 2) Eventually you need another game.

 

*delete as appropriate

Except that capitalism doesn't always work, as the events of 2008 exemplified beyond peradventure. The global economy collapsed ten years ago and has been on life-support ever since. Capital markets are plainly not efficient, optimising and self-regulating in the way that economists supposed them to be. You'd imagine as champions of market-based solutions that the Tories would have something urgent to say about this, and yet astonishingly one after another they get up to confirm their neoliberal credentials and pretend that nothing happened.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by zugzwang

[No One]

28 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

Except that capitalism doesn't always work, as the events of 2008 exemplified beyond peradventure. The global economy collapsed ten years ago and has been on life-support ever since. Capital markets are plainly not efficient, optimising and self-regulating in the way that economists supposed them to be. You'd imagine as champions of market-based solutions that the Tories would have something urgent to say about this, and yet astonishingly one after another they get up to confirm their neoliberal credentials and pretend that nothing happened.

 

 

For 08 to have been as per "capitalist" ideology, all those banks should have gone to the wall. 

What happened 10 years ago was socialism for the 0.1%. Pure and simple.

[Trump Invective]

1 hour ago, No One said:

For 08 to have been as per "capitalist" ideology, all those banks should have gone to the wall. 

What happened 10 years ago was socialism for the 0.1%. Pure and simple.

Should've done an Iceland but of course UK is a shit country ruled by appropriate characters, so...

[macca13]

3 hours ago, No One said:

There is a common myth that the UK is too urbanised, and the green has to be protected. However only 4% of the land is built on for housing, 1% for roads, 1% for factories and offices. [Roughly] Naturally the South has a higher concentration of built up areas. That's true. A lot of the land is taken up by farms, which contrary to popular opinion, are not that good for the environment.

This is an overpopulation issue, we import 65% of our food and have killed 70% of our pollinating insects.. we are food vulnerable.. 

we could not feed ourselves properly during the war, and if there was a war, environmental disaster or currency crash we would starve.. 

but hey ho more people, more concrete to infinity and beyond.. until it hits the fan and people wonder how it all went wrong! 

[Dorkins]

15 minutes ago, macca13 said:

we import 65% of our food and have killed 70% of our pollinating insects..

If you like pollinating insects you should be delighted about the replacement of farmland with houses. Farmers spray their fields with insecticides, amateur gardeners usually don't.

[Si1]

On 29/09/2018 at 15:55, Bruce Banner said:

Six years ago I would have been aghast at the mere thought of the Tory party self destructing. Now, I would welcome it, albeit with the caveat that I would like to see it resurrected when the last of the "Cameroons" have left the building. 

+1

[macca13]

1 hour ago, Dorkins said:

If you like pollinating insects you should be delighted about the replacement of farmland with houses. Farmers spray their fields with insecticides, amateur gardeners usually don't.

Venezuela import 90% of their food and the result of the currency crash is a stark warning to having a higher population than what is sustainable in food availability!  

country run by greed and stupidity!

[ElPapasito]

On 28/09/2018 at 16:43, Bear Goggles said:

Well, only the death of the Tory party in its current incarnation, in the same way that New Labour has already died. There is absolutely room for a non-socialist narrative for solving the housing issue, but it involves ditching the "flexible rental market" and "house is my pension" narratives, and the current Tory leadership are not (yet) willing to do that because their over 65 voter base would baulk at any real alternatives. 

A more traditional conservative approach would consider homes to be fundamental to a good family life, and secure housing for the majority as being essential to developing and maintaining a nation of upstanding citizens. Speculation and investing in homes would be frowned upon as attacking that principle, housing ownership and tenancy models could be reformed to suit people in different sections of society. Remember, traditional conservatism doesn't seek to turn everyone into a self-sufficient aspirational social climber, it tries to ensure everyone is happy with their place in society and not getting upperty socialist ideas about overthrowing the stats quo.

The current Tory policy is a leftover from the neoliberal ideal of the property owning democracy (a noble ideal in itself it should be said), but the property owning democracy was unable to disentangle itself with the libertarian free market ideal of the speculator and rent seeker as hero entrepreneur, and here we are - an entire generation priced-out of secure housing by predatory finance and BTL spivs. Once the Tories accept that the old dream is over, and that shouting "Venezuela!" at anyone suggesting an alternative isn't going to hold back the inevitable, I'm sure a more traditional conservative approach to housing will emerge from the right.

 

What he said! Excellent analysis of toryism.