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.

Or expand Manchester Airport instead of Heathrow 3 or a new airport in kent



Or shared the Olympic venues more equitably around the country rather than London and the SE such as the aquatic centre or the white water centre. Again by building them in london that is where those centres now exist and mean that attractions are all now in London

or spend more money on infrastructure in the North

etc etc

The Olympics are always in a city rather than a country. Fact.



Events took place outside London. Fact.



London is still the capital city. Fact.



I live here and am not even some massive fan of the place –º I most certainly don't want to spend the rest of my life here – but the fact remains that it is the capital.

You obviously decided to ignore the phrase LONDON AND THE SE. FACT

I agree with DG's general point that there needs far more investment in infrastructure and projects outside London, but also agree with Mintball re Wembley and the Olympics.



For instance transport spending is ridiculously higher in London than most other places. £2,700 per head in London compared to £201 per head in Yorks & Humber, £134 in the North West and just £5 per head in the North East.



Now I don't mind London getting the lions share of investment, it's the capital city and is vital to the country, but there has been continual high investment (in all sorts of areas, not just public money) in London and a lack of it in other areas, especially the north.

But no one wants to fly to Manchester or via Manchester.

Really people who live in the North Of England want to travel to London to fly anywhere!

Manchester, Birmingham, Teeside, East Midlands, Doncaster, Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Preswick, Aberdeen and Inverness all have enough capacity to cope with the traffic, most could double their throughput without much effort. But we are not talking about holiday makers.

Some Olympic events were held outside London and the south east. Fact.

Other than football etc which used existing stadia which ones utilised newly built facilities etc outside of London and the SE which can now be part of the sporting infrastructure for other regions.



What went to Cornwall or the NE or Yorks and Lancs the west midlands etc.



PS i regard the Lee valley as London and the SE





My point is that London is the capital city therefore everything needs to be in London a self fulfilling prophecy.



It is the centre of finance therefore buisnessman want to be there





It is the centre of Culture therefore the Arty people want to be there.



It is the national centre for sports therefore the sporting establishment want to be there.



All these important people want to be there so it needs good transport links.



Therefore we should build all the big airports there.



Because it has the best international transport links we should route all provincial traffic through there. ( dont get me started on HS2).



Because it is the "centre" of the country therefore we should build more there.



The more you build there the bigger it becomes and the more everything new needs to be there.



It is realy nice that occasionally the museums throw a few bits out to the regions like the IWM in Manchester or the Armouries in Leeds but they are so small that they are just the few scraps that are thrown out.



Nothing will change without a fundamental change in the relationship between the centre and the provinces.



In my view it is no different to the centre shafting the regions as it always has done. From William the conqueror laying waste to the north, Henry 8th persecuting the Northern Lords, Peterloo, Thatcher and heavy industry, and now the coalition.



Other countries seem to be able to address some of these issues.



The capital City of Germany is not the same as the administrative centre or the financial centre, The capital city of Australia is not the biggest city, Italy's capital is not the centre of finance or fashion etc.

a) and b) are the same thing and I answered that in my previous post.



As to the last point if landlords are so geared up that they risk losing their properties if they had to face reduction in rents then that is tough luck. If a large social housing program was embarked upon and that increased the housing supply thus reducing rents, would you be suggesting we compensate landlords?



We are seemingly stuck in a vicious circle that shows private provision of housing doesn't work. It is one of low availability, landlords who do take on high mortgages and thus charge high rents (or just charge high rents because they can!) and the result is a ridiculous housing benefit bill.



You can't simply have a London that is just for the rich unless you want to start paying cleaners, refuse collection workers and so on £50K plus salaries so something has got to change and shipping people out which may end up costing them their job as pointed out in another post is not the answer. There is only one way to fix it and that is reduce rents.

That is not what you first raised.



You claimed that events were not held outside of London and the south east. This was factually incorrect.







Err, football? Plus the sailing was in Weymouth & Portland, which is in Dorset. Dorset is not in the south east.



And let us remind ourselves that these, in keeping with the tradition of the Games, were the London Games.







However, the capital of France is the centre for all these things. And so it goes on. It was vbfg, some years ago, who pointed out that there are (IIRC) two kinds of country/capital. One where, like the UK and France, politics, culture, economics etc are all based in one capital. The other variety, as you suggest, is where things are spread out more. There are, incidentally, reasons of recent history as to why these splits have occurred in Germany. It's possibly similar elsewhere.

In Australia creating Canberra as the capital was a deliberate attempt to avoid the London and Paris situations where one region of the country dominates. They didn't want any one of the "real" states to dominate because it would become the administrative as well as (say) financial capital due to the prominence that would give to one of the major cities such as Sydney or Melbourne.



Does it work? Well quite a few people think Sydney is the capital anyway but I think generally it does. It's not perfect, we didn't have the Canberra Olympics did we

but I think it is better than in the UK where London and the SE seem to work like a sponge for wealth and distort the countries economy.

Spot on.

The low-paid jobs keep the Capital (and the capital) running, ship them out and London stops.

They were always the London Games. The bid was 'the London bid' etc.



And the entire country could benefit in all sorts of ways. Whether it did is entirely another question, but it doesn't simply mean infrastructure.







That's your opinion – and one you've voiced a number of times.



It's a pity, though,. that you don't recognise top arts companies that are based outside the capital. There are quite a few.

I recognise that , but there is an issue around Arts funding relying much more on national funding and charities which is still skewed towards London.



Due to LA cuts (which there is very clear evidence to show is unfairly weighted against the midlands and the North) there is huge pressure on the support that LAs can now contribute to arts funding with the net result the flow of talent and resources will be heading back to London. It is clear that various changes ie in education mean that many soutrhern LAs in the shires are now being treated much more favourably than in the North.



But being based in London i am guessing that whilst you know all the above is true you probably wont be campaigning on the streets for a fairer deal for the North !!!