Same old Tories - completely out of touch

[vegster]

Are you referring to yourself, because last week it was over £8.00 per hour?

Nope, not referring me I'm one of the lucky ones remember ?....I'm still job hunting mind you. You should have a look at what is on offer mostly minimum wage temporary work or £25K+ for those Project Managers and Account Managers.

 

[wellquickwoody]

The problem with selling council housing is that we are not replacing it, the result of which means the welfare budget is often paying housing benefit to private landlords who are getting rich at the taxpayer's expense. I don't have a problem with right to buy if we replace the houses however this is just not happening. This government have sold so many of the countries assets for a quick buck that will never be seen again. A classic example of this was the government selling our share in Eurostar, a profitable growing business that was making money year on year and only getting more popular. So we may have made a big one off profit but will never see any money ever again.

I have to agree with your opinion on right to buy. On the upside, at least it has been announced only in the last few days to loosen the ties on local authority borrowing enabling more social house building to begin again.

 

[Hastings gull]

I don't think people think it's a scandal that those that can afford to do buy property. The scandal is that the PM seems to think there are millions of 'working class' who have bought property and struggling with mortgages rather than stating there are millions of working class that are struggling to meet their rent!!!

Fully agree with your first point. The PM then talked about people struggling with their mortgages, as we used to, and those desperate to oppose her then go on to say, without any evidence other than she did not say so, that she has not given any consideration to those trying to pay their rent.

 

[Not nick rhodes]

U really can't have a moron like Corbyn in charge it would cause huge damage to this country and make us a laughing stock. Working class or middle class, the Conservatives know how to run the country and importantly the economy. Labour with Blair in charge was one thing but now only an extremist socialist worker type would think Corbyn is a sensible choice.

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

I have to agree with your opinion on right to buy. On the upside, at least it has been announced only in the last few days to loosen the ties on local authority borrowing enabling more social house building to begin again.

I saw that Arthur Scargill has finally bought his London council flat. The property is valued at £2m and he has purchased it for £1m. Socialism at it's finest.

I think it was his friend, Mrs T that came up with the idea of the Right to Buy scheme.

 

[Hastings gull]

Nope, not referring me I'm one of the lucky ones remember ?....I'm still job hunting mind you. You should have a look at what is on offer mostly minimum wage temporary work or £25K+ for those Project Managers and Account Managers.

Yes, recall the exchange, but not you saying that you were one of the lucky ones, just that you work your xxx off for a pittance! Good luck with the job hunting.

 

[Buzzer]

But the thing that tickles me is her little bit on "ordinary, working-class families." You know..."People who own their own home, but worry about paying the mortgage."

Er, Theresa, have you not noticed the millions of in work benefit recipients who currently have no chance of ever owning their own home, unless of course they're lucky enough to be in scarcely available Social Housing. You've help at hand for them of course, by embarking on another disastrous round of 'Right to Buy' to screw the next generation over even more than this current one who have been left out in the cold.

As someone who works in social housing I agree with this completely. As part of my job, I do a little bit of voluntary work helping vulnerable residents with sorting out budgeting, giving them assistance when filling in forms and trying to ensure that they know their rights and responsibilities and all through the system, the people are scared. Would-be tenants desperate for the security of getting a housing association as a landlord as opposed to going private and paying over the odds for substandard accommodation, being exploited by managing agent and landlord alike.

And a lot of our existing tenants worried that there might be a change in the law that means that if they are deemed to earn too much then they will have to go private. We've already seen the bedroom tax rear its ugly head, it really isn't beyond the realms of possibility for some bright spark to suggest means-testing as a way of trying to fix this problem.

I say this as a dyed-in-the wool Tory, the right-to-buy a council house has been disastrous, shameful even and has cost us as taxpayers so much more than if it had never been allowed. Quite honestly, I think anyone who has exercised their right to buy should pay a specific surcharge on profit they made from selling the house and this money be ring-fenced for spending only on building or buying more social housing.

 

[Stato]

The problem with selling council housing is that we are not replacing it, the result of which means the welfare budget is often paying housing benefit to private landlords who are getting rich at the taxpayer's expense. I don't have a problem with right to buy if we replace the houses however this is just not happening. This government have sold so many of the countries assets for a quick buck that will never be seen again. A classic example of this was the government selling our share in Eurostar, a profitable growing business that was making money year on year and only getting more popular. So we may have made a big one off profit but will never see any money ever again.

Spot on. Thatcher's original policy was not about helping out the working classes. It was about moving ownership into the private sector, because her government was completely dominated by an obsession that private was good and public was bad, whilst using Orwellian newspeak to pretend that they were being pragmatic. The clue was that the policy forbade local authorities from using any of the money to build new council housing.

The latest idiotic attack on the concept of social housing, extending the right to buy to housing associations is beyond a parody of Thatcherism. It reminds me of Old Man Potter's plots to dismantle the Bailey Building & Loan, so there would be no competition for his slum housing in 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

 

[Buzzer]

I saw that Arthur Scargill has finally bought his London council flat. The property is valued at £2m and he has purchased it for £1m. Socialism at it's finest.

I think it was his friend, Mrs T that came up with the idea of the Right to Buy scheme.

Are you sure that's right? I always thought that Scargill had a grace-and-favour flat somewhere near the Barbican rent free from the NUM.

 

[vegster]

Are you referring to yourself, because last week it was over £8.00 per hour?

I also got lucky with the Company pension Plan which the Government forced them to introduce.... after an initial delay and lowering the banding of my Pensionable Salary to £8,876.00 they are contributing a whole 1% of my Pensionable Salary to my Pension Plan to the tune of £7.40 a month ! so that makes £14.80 a month going in to a pension for me in 10 years....according to the plans figures, if everything goes VERY well, and wages increase and the plan performs 7% above inflation in 10 years time I will have an annual pension of £339.00 a YEAR !

God Bless us One and All !

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

Are you sure that's right? I always thought that Scargill had a grace-and-favour flat somewhere near the Barbican rent free from the NUM.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scargill-makes-1m-on-cut-price-council-flat-82qv555fb

 

[Buzzer]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scargill-makes-1m-on-cut-price-council-flat-82qv555fb

Fair enough! Nice work if you can get it.

 

[Norman Potting]

Many, many years ago I worked in a High Street bank, this at the height of "right to buy" in the early to mid eighties. I recall that a significant number of mortgages we granted for these were not to the actual residents themselves but to children and even grandchildren with their own houses all chipping in to secure a discounted asset for their own profit once their relative was no longer around.

 

[Hastings gull]

I also got lucky with the Company pension Plan which the Government forced them to introduce.... after an initial delay and lowering the banding of my Pensionable Salary to £8,876.00 they are contributing a whole 1% of my Pensionable Salary to my Pension Plan to the tune of £7.40 a month ! so that makes £14.80 a month going in to a pension for me in 10 years....according to the plans figures, if everything goes VERY well, and wages increase and the plan performs 7% above inflation in 10 years time I will have an annual pension of £339.00 a YEAR !

God Bless us One and All !

You could go first class to the away match at Wigan and have some beers . . .

 

[1066familyman]

I saw that Arthur Scargill has finally bought his London council flat. The property is valued at £2m and he has purchased it for £1m. Socialism at it's finest.

I think it was his friend, Mrs T that came up with the idea of the Right to Buy scheme.

Make your mind up :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ve-council-house-despite-generous-salary.html

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

Make your mind up :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ve-council-house-despite-generous-salary.html

I have made my mind up. Scargill is a socialist when it suits him and a capitalist when there is a whiff of money.

What your view?

 

[GT49er]

I say this as a dyed-in-the wool Tory, the right-to-buy a council house has been disastrous, shameful even and has cost us as taxpayers so much more than if it had never been allowed.

Fair play to you for acknowledging that. One of the most destructive pieces of legislation this fair country has had to endure.

 

[GT49er]

I have made my mind up. Scargill is a socialist when it suits him and a capitalist when there is a whiff of money.

What your view?

100% yes. He was Thatcher's greatest ally in losing the miners' strike. If he'd allowed secret ballots instead of pithead show of hands, the midlands mines would have almost certainly come out on strike too. Total support for the strike, 100% united front, total solidarity, no flying pickets, different result.

I wouldn't be surprised if he and Thatcher got together and had a good laugh about it afterwards. Funny how he didn't finish up as impoverished as most of his members, isn't it?

 

[drew]

I saw that Arthur Scargill has finally bought his London council flat. The property is valued at £2m and he has purchased it for £1m. Socialism at it's finest.

I think it was his friend, Mrs T that came up with the idea of the Right to Buy scheme.

I think right to buy was actually first proposed by Labour back in their 1959 manifesto.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

So is the OP saying that ordinary, working class people cannot own their own home?

mmmm no.... something about owning a garage, as if its a given. I don't own a garage. And that was just a small part of the OP's point. You are nit picking, I think...