Tuesday, November 2, 2010
More anecdotal evidence of housing problems
The coming housing crisis is bad news for everyone but the far Right
Abena works part-time and is married with two daughters, aged seven and three. For the last eight years, she and her family have lived in a one-bedroom flat high in a tower block in Enfield. They do not have sufficient points for a two-bedroom council property. Shelter says that a million British children are living in overcrowded conditions. Anxiety about jobs and housing and a chaotic immigration programme led to the last surge of the far right. The private sector job surge, if it happens, will inevitably favour migrants. Jobs for milk-frothers in southern coffee bars won’t go to the jobless northern steelworker but to the pliable army of young Eastern Europeans. We are moving towards a world of elites with a mobile servant class.
Posted by drewster @ 12:14 AM (1373 views)
8 thoughts on “More anecdotal evidence of housing problems”
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devo says:
What a strange article! I can’t make head or tail of it – I’ll read it again in the morning.
drewster says:
Yes, it is rather confusing. The author used to write for the Guardian. Perhaps that explains the lack of intellectual coherence and the champagne-socialist world-view.
The right-wing view would be to point out that if they’ve lived in a one-bedroom flat for eight years, but their eldest child is only seven, then they clearly shouldn’t have had children in the first place. Having deigned to procreate beyond they means, they certainly shouldn’t have the cheek to demand handouts from hard-working taxpayers who haven’t been so feckless.
The left-wing view would be: Won’t somebody think of the children? If they grow up in poverty then they will become gun-toting criminals and they will kill you in a drug-crazed frenzy. No matter how hard these people work, they’ll never be able to afford a decent flat in London, so let’s just give them one instead. Everybody knows that there aren’t nearly enough flats to go round in London; but we’ll just gloss over that problem and blame the evil bankers for taking away the 125% mortgages that would have enabled hard-working families like these to get on the ladder.
[In case it’s not obvious, this is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.]
builditandtheywillcome says:
Drewster @ 2.
I don’t believe it’s as easily “boxed” as a view from the left,or a view from the right.I consider myself to be a centre right type,with leanings to the left on certain areas.I find it incredible that they didn’t qualify for a bigger home.It seems to me that a married couple with two young children should be nearer the top of the pecking order.Both seemingly work,so they are doing the good thing.It would seem,on the face of it,that here is another perfect example of why not to bother working.If both parents gave up working and claimed every benefit they could be “entitled” to,i’m sure a two bedroom home would soon be forthcoming.I know of single people,both male and female,who have manipulated the “system” to gain housing,ie they have manufactured a problem for themselves,such as alcoholism or drug problem or homelessness,to gain more points for housing.This is how warped the system has/had become.And it’s been happening for at least a decade that i’m aware of.
mark wadsworth says:
“a world of elites with a mobile servant class.” Poetry!
Drewster, comment 2 – the Home-Owner-Ist view is a subtle blend of your left and right parodies, with a few untruths of its own, roughly as follows:
“It’s mass immigration that has pushed up the price of houses but we can’t build any more because Britain is and overcrowded small island. We have to protect the countryside for food security and to prevent gobal warming. Young families are finding are finding it difficult to get on the housing ladder because the casino capitalists demand such high deposits. If only the government could offer people low interest deposits or reintroduce MIRAS to enable them to afford a house. But there again, back in my day, you’d save up a deposit to buy a house before you got married and had children. And we didn’t have flat screens when I were a lad”
fancypants says:
Surely, reading between the lines, the point of this story is that a couple who marry, raise a family together, work, pay tax, and do not claim benefits (beyond those universally available) *should* in a developed nation be able to live in rather less cramped conditions than this. A generation ago this wouldn’t have been difficult to achieve.
So, the question is – why is it so difficult now? Perhaps the author would have broken through if she’d written about the mis-allocation (iniquitous distribution) of housing. Sadly, that wasn’t really the purpose of the article.
general congreve says:
Sorry, but I’d prefer my milk-frother in the coffee house (if I ever choose to visit one) to be a hot Eastern European Lass, rather than some scabby overweight-English reprobate.
I really don’t think a few votes for the BNP by scum, who think they’re entitled to bang out as many little rotters as they want and live for free at everyone else’s expense, is going to make the sum total of f4ck all difference to the UK’s political landscape.
As a comment on the Daily Mail website said a few days ago with reference to families being given huge houses on the social, ‘feed the pigeons and more will come’. Bottom line, if you can’t afford to have kids, don’t have them.
letthemfall says:
The article proffers a fundamental truth – “a world of elites with a mobile servant class”.
It is not incoherent at all but pointing out what is likely to happen. Although the UK is not a nation given to social unrest, every society has its limits and I suspect we are not far off that. This may or may not take the form of a far-right upsurge. Whatever happens, I hope the politicians view the situation more intelligently than a540 and GC.
braindeed says:
shyster@2 said….’The author used to write for the Guardian. Perhaps that explains the lack of intellectual coherence…….and in fact was so loopy he had to take a job with the mickey mouse Torygraph
“Subjective”…..go look it up, you pseudo-intellectual buffoon.