Bearing in mind your first response to the thread was about housing. you should get your facts right.



The root of the housing crisis goes back to Thatchers decision to allow the selling off of council houses which i did not have a problem with, the problem was LA s were not allowed to re invest that money in new social housing stock with the net result there has been a reduction in social housing ever since. That allied to the failure to address the problem of holiday homes, and the expoential rise in house values based on low credit and no relationship to the ability to afford housing which has gone on for the last 30 years.



So a p[roblem started by Thatcher and compounded ever since.

Which, to her ilk, represents a success in rolling back the state.

Awful example of posturing by a Labour Council. It'll back-fire on Labour at the next General Election. Labour must win alot of seats in London to win a majority. If Labour boroughs ship people out and Tory ones do not, Labour will get thrashed in the next election.



The waiting lists issue is a difficult one. Labour's cronies killed thousands of people by concentrating on waiting ltimes rather than care. But, waiting times are an issue. The problem to me seems to be the unwieldy systems and practices in NHS hospitals. From my observation far greater quality, throughput could be achieved without additional expense.

That article quotes a single mother who has smashed out 4 kids in the last 10 years. Her rent, which is paid for by the council, is £340 a week. No doubt she receives endless other benefits in respect of her 4 children.



She complains it is not fair.



She is correct, but not for the reasons she thinks she is:



Most people in full-time employment would not be able to afford to live where she lives. This woman is probably claiming more in benefits than most middle-income people earn.



It is not fair that someone can get this sort of deal on state benefits.



Can anyone seriously disagree?

Yes because it is not the benefits that are the problem but the rents.



The solution is not to ship 'em out and let someone more wealthy move in, it is to reduce the rent and the housing benefit bill will drop instantly.



Then no one would be able to make the argument that its wrong that someone is claiming more in benefits than what most middle-income people earn because they wouldn't be any more. That argument as used by the government is a ludicrous excuse because the claimant isn't the one getting the money anyway - it's the landlord (council or private).



So what they should be saying is it isn't fair landlords are ripping the tax payer off by exploiting the housing shortage.



Market forces can't reduce he rent at the minute because of lack of hosing stock which as was pointed out is in part a direct result of the council house sell off coupled with the rule councils could not build more social housing. So the only solution is a rent cap which is long overdue.

Sarah Heywood, leader of Camden Council was interviewed this afternoon on Radio Leeds and was keen to emphasis that shipping people out of the borough was a last resort and that they had not yet begun to consider doing this but it was true that some families would find themselves with a £150 a week (a week, not a month), shortfall in their rents which would be unaffordable.



She also repeated several times that most of the people who had been identified as having this problem were already in work and not the workshy shirkers that we hear so much about, ironically the effect of moving families far away from the borough in which they work would make them unemployed, so they'd probably have their rents paid but would no longer be contributing to the exchequer.



She didn't expand on what would then happen to those jobs that those people HAD been doing for obviously no-one would be able to aford to live there to work there - a disaster in the making.

How do you propose reducing rent, given that:



a) rent is set in response to market conditions and the basic laws of supply and demand;

b) London is a desirable place to live (God knows why);

b) many landlords have mortgages and simply cannot afford to reduce the amount of rent they charge.

Limit the rent that can be charged on accommodation bring back fair rents

Build houses which are affordable social houses





introduce policies which share national resources etc out of London and the SE. Things like putting the national football stadium in Birmingham would have been an idea



Allow La,s to charge full council tax on holiday homes let them be taxed additionally if they are occupied for less than 42 weeks of the year



Ensure that landlords are declaring all their income and increase the repayments on mortgages for rent

Introduce uncle cod'ead's simple method of building new truly affordable homes. This will have the effect of:



a) Over supply will reduce rents

b) this can even work in London

c) fook 'em, they got into it thinking it would only go one way. Once they go bust, that means even more affordable properties available

You do this extraordinary thing called rent caps, which has obviously slaughtered the sector in many other countries.



Not.

You make some really valid points – and then ruin it with this.



London is, whether you like it not, the capital city.



Get over it.