Is it PotG?
Thrifty non-licker
What could possibly go wrong?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...recession-starmer-reeves-budget-b2663797.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...recession-starmer-reeves-budget-b2663797.html
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[Politics] Are Labour going to turn this country around?
- Thread starter Flounce
- Start date
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
Beyond the headlines, this is in the article.
CBI remain hopeful economy will improve in 2025
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said UK firms “remain hopeful that things will improve in the New Year”.“It may take a few more months for firms to work through the impact of the sharp increase in employment taxes outlined in the Budget and adjust their hiring and investment plans accordingly.
“But businesses can probably still look forward to a steady, if unspectacular, economic recovery next year as the impact of the inflation shock fades and interest rates come down further”, Ben Jones, the organisation’s lead economist said.
He added: “The government can support business confidence by accelerating measures that could restore some headroom for investment.
“These include delivering flexibility to the Apprenticeship Levy, preparing a faster timetable to reform business rates and working in full partnership with boardrooms to develop a long-term modern industrial strategy that can provide the stability and certainty needed to unlock innovation, investment and grow the economy.”
Is it PotG?
Thrifty non-licker
I do enjoy the word 'hopeful'.
maltaseagull
Well-known member
I am "hopeful" that Brighton will qualify for the Champions League.
I'm hopeful Scarlet Johansson will turn up on my doorstep wearing only some Xmas wrapping paper on Xmas morning.
Well if you're confident they're wrong I assume you know where the bookies is?
Recency bias.
The reality is that most things have got better over the years, albeit often despite the government of the time, but generally because governments of both persuasion try to do things that benefit people, and generally only look bad when they start egregiously gaming policy for electoral or, conversely doctrinaire, purposes.
You may feel that the average person is now smaller, more often ill, more likely to be unemployed, borderline malnourished, uneducated, more likely to be abused and assaulted while going about one's daily life, bullied for being different, discriminated against, and more likely to be living in squalid and dangerous accommodation, with a shocking diet and less hope, but the reality is different.
I accept that it is much harder to get on the properly ladder now but that's a bit of an outlier.
And as our lives have improved many of us have found the time to become increasingly nit picky. All the fuss about taking the farmer's tax breaks back to pre-Thatcher days (albeit not in full) as if this represents a completely unacceptable attack on British Life by the Loony Left is beyond pathetic.
As I often say, one or two people need to pull their knickers back up and make me a cup of tea.
Is it PotG?
Thrifty non-licker
Can you let me know what the actual bet would be, I can't find it?
It would be in all of our interests for this cabal of fibbers to succeed, the start is hardly encouraging though.
We had to hurry-up the council here to publish a local plan because a company registered in the Isle of Man is very keen to build on some agricultural land that has no road access with all the sewage and waste water plumbed into the system that already bloods here. They piled in with an application before the plan was published but fortunately our lobbying got it stopped. But they have come back with a modification and this very week there has been a public hearing.
Separately there are several large housing developments that are on on local plan, and Faversham is set to expand greatly in the next 2, 5, 10 and 20 years. I am generally happy with that, albeit one may nit-pick over access, schools, affordable housing etc.
Unfortunately our council is a small part of an authority dominated by Sittingbourne and Sheppy and they seem more than happy to have the required new buildings focused around Faversham. That said there is a new plan to build massively south of Sittingbourne. This has upset rural villagers.
I would be interested to know whether house building will lower house prices according to the laws of supply and demand. My hope is yes but my expectation is no.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
I think more should be done about holiday homes, Air BnBs, and the 700,000 empty properties in the country before new builds. Empty properties owned by oligarchs as investments for example.
Indeed.
An odd one yesterday on local news was a woman (councilor) complaining that the new development in Sittingbourne was bad because there were few 'affordable houses for rent.'.
I said to Mrs T 'If she wants more rental houses built who does she think will own them?'
The only answer we could come up with was the council.
I don't see building council houses as a solution to the cost of buying a house, especially given that it is still law that when you have lived in a council house for some years you can buy it at a knock-down price, thereby defrauding the taxpayers who built it. Legally.
The idea of stopping council house sales and building new council houses is interesting but has not been part of the national debate since the 1980s, since 'everyone' seems to have bought into Thatcher's wheeze, the right who disapprove of council houses, and, er, the other right (the working class tories) who suddenly found they could buy their house at a knock down price. I think that ship has sailed.
Meanwhile the issue you mention certainly need addressing:
The idea of buying property to rent is excused as fair in a capitalist system on the grounds that this meets a social need. One could perhaps argue that the sale of heroin and crack cocaine would do the the same. The need exists only becaus people can't afford to buy, in a culture that (unlike Germany) is addicted to home ownership as a self-defining necessity.
If we made it illegal to own a second home much of the problem would resolve with a flood of houses put on the market, and an inevitable fall in house prices.
But this would not be palatable at large. Those who bought second properties when it was legal would make even more fuss than the farmers who are being asked to pay a bit of tax (albeit less than they paid before Thatcher). And nobody likes to see the value of the house they own fall. The Mail would say that 'Labour have crashed the housing market' when in fact they would be rebalancing it.
If house prices fell across the board, in relative terms those losing out are those who planned to sell their house (or second house) in order to obtain cash for non-housing purposes. It would be interesting to know how many people fall into this category.
Let's not forget that downsizers would not be affected much because the cost of the house they are downsizing to would fall proportionately to the house they are selling. They would just have a bit less spare cash after the deal.
But overall, the push back would be immense, and the usual wankers we see bleating on NSC would be accusing Starmer of being the wort PM in the worst government ever. Luckily Starmer et al don't seem too bothered about that presently, but they will as the next GE looms.
We live in times that could be a bit more interesting
Indeed.
An odd one yesterday on local news was a woman (councilor) complaining that the new development in Sittingbourne was bad because there were few 'affordable houses for rent.'.
I said to Mrs T 'If she wants more rental houses built who does she think will own them?'
The only answer we could come up with was the council.
I don't see building council houses as a solution to the cost of buying a house, especially given that it is still law that when you have lived in a council house for some years you can buy it at a knock-down price, thereby defrauding the taxpayers who built it. Legally.
The idea of stopping council house sales and building new council houses is interesting but has not been part of the national debate since the 1980s, since 'everyone' seems to have bought into Thatcher's wheeze, the right who disapprove of council houses, and, er, the other right (the working class tories) who suddenly found they could buy their house at a knock down price. I think that ship has sailed.
Meanwhile the issue you mention certainly need addressing:
The idea of buying property to rent is excused as fair in a capitalist system on the grounds that this meets a social need. One could perhaps argue that the sale of heroin and crack cocaine would do the the same. The need exists only becaus people can't afford to buy, in a culture that (unlike Germany) is addicted to home ownership as a self-defining necessity.
If we made it illegal to own a second home much of the problem would resolve with a flood of houses put on the market, and an inevitable fall in house prices.
But this would not be palatable at large. Those who bought second properties when it was legal would make even more fuss than the farmers who are being asked to pay a bit of tax (albeit less than they paid before Thatcher). And nobody likes to see the value of the house they own fall. The Mail would say that 'Labour have crashed the housing market' when in fact they would be rebalancing it.
If house prices fell across the board, in relative terms those losing out are those who planned to sell their house (or second house) in order to obtain cash for non-housing purposes. It would be interesting to know how many people fall into this category.
Let's not forget that downsizers would not be affected much because the cost of the house they are downsizing to would fall proportionately to the house they are selling. They would just have a bit less spare cash after the deal.
But overall, the push back would be immense, and the usual wankers we see bleating on NSC would be accusing Starmer of being the wort PM in the worst government ever. Luckily Starmer et al don't seem too bothered about that presently, but they will as the next GE looms.
We live in times that could be a bit more interesting
Sorry, my i pad seems to have had a funny turn……..probably excitement about Christmas. I’ll have to turn it off and douse it with a bucket of cold water, that sometimes works.
Tenants haven`t been allowed to buy their council houses for about 15-20 years at least .Indeed.
An odd one yesterday on local news was a woman (councilor) complaining that the new development in Sittingbourne was bad because there were few 'affordable houses for rent.'.
I said to Mrs T 'If she wants more rental houses built who does she think will own them?'
The only answer we could come up with was the council.
I don't see building council houses as a solution to the cost of buying a house, especially given that it is still law that when you have lived in a council house for some years you can buy it at a knock-down price, thereby defrauding the taxpayers who built it. Legally.
The idea of stopping council house sales and building new council houses is interesting but has not been part of the national debate since the 1980s, since 'everyone' seems to have bought into Thatcher's wheeze, the right who disapprove of council houses, and, er, the other right (the working class tories) who suddenly found they could buy their house at a knock down price. I think that ship has sailed.
Meanwhile the issue you mention certainly need addressing:
The idea of buying property to rent is excused as fair in a capitalist system on the grounds that this meets a social need. One could perhaps argue that the sale of heroin and crack cocaine would do the the same. The need exists only becaus people can't afford to buy, in a culture that (unlike Germany) is addicted to home ownership as a self-defining necessity.
If we made it illegal to own a second home much of the problem would resolve with a flood of houses put on the market, and an inevitable fall in house prices.
But this would not be palatable at large. Those who bought second properties when it was legal would make even more fuss than the farmers who are being asked to pay a bit of tax (albeit less than they paid before Thatcher). And nobody likes to see the value of the house they own fall. The Mail would say that 'Labour have crashed the housing market' when in fact they would be rebalancing it.
If house prices fell across the board, in relative terms those losing out are those who planned to sell their house (or second house) in order to obtain cash for non-housing purposes. It would be interesting to know how many people fall into this category.
Let's not forget that downsizers would not be affected much because the cost of the house they are downsizing to would fall proportionately to the house they are selling. They would just have a bit less spare cash after the deal.
But overall, the push back would be immense, and the usual wankers we see bleating on NSC would be accusing Starmer of being the wort PM in the worst government ever. Luckily Starmer et al don't seem too bothered about that presently, but they will as the next GE looms.
We live in times that could be a bit more interesting
Strange. My in laws had the option a year ago.....
"Yes, you can buy your council house through the government's Right to Buy scheme if you meet certain eligibility requirements:
You've been a secure tenant of the property for at least three years
The property is your main or only home
The property is self-contained
You've had a public sector landlord, such as a council, housing association, or NHS trust, for at least three year"
Wes Tupper
Active member
- Feb 27, 2024
- 131
Banning second home ownership is easier said than done. The first thing that would happen is that couples would simply take ownership of one property each, transfer ownership to a trust or corporate entity, transfer to another family member, etc.
Banning second homes would also reduce CGT in the long run. I’m anti second homes that aren’t being fully utilised, but other solutions are required.
Banning second homes would also reduce CGT in the long run. I’m anti second homes that aren’t being fully utilised, but other solutions are required.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,062
anything about second homes, banning, taxing or whatever is fundementally missing the point and usually focused on house prices. so what someone has a buy to let, that's someone living there (aside the seperate holiday home issue). the real point is we haven't built enough homes to keep up with population growth for 40 years. pissing about with who owns the housing stock doesn't make any houses appear. apart from the council houses not being built, private builds are about 1/3 less than the 60's, while population goes up faster.
either we get both councils building again and developers building more, or continue to be surprised by house prices and rents soaring up.
Curious Orange
Punxsatawney Phil
Population growth is the issue you say, I wonder what is behind that...
Anyway, enough with the blatant trolling on my part, I think another issue is potentially how we use the housing stock has changed. Has there really been a significant shift away from multi-person occupancy towards single-person occupancy in the last fifty years?
Charlie Livesey
Member
- Sep 28, 2023
- 36
Not entirely sure if a complete turn around is possible, but if, in three years time we get to be able to get face to face appointments with GPs, dental treatment on the NHS and patients aren`t crowded into corridors in the hospitals, if we stop raw sewage being dumped in our seas and rivers, if we get a adequately funded, functioning police force and we move to a fairer more equal society, that will do for me.
I wonder how many of council houses that Thatcher allowed tenants to purchase in Brighton & Hove over the past 40 years or so are now holiday homes, air BnBs or private rental properties (usually HMOs)?
This housing has effectively been privatised keeping it well out of the reach of most first time buyers. A great scheme to begin with but now a huge part of the polarisation of wealth in this country.