So is that an inability to answer the points/questions raised or an unwillingness to try?

My grandparents wouldn't have called it charity, in fact they would have balked at the suggestion that they should accept charity in the form of a property for their young family. In fact I would suggest they paid more in rent for their "charitable" property than that of the house they moved from, pro rata.

There's a couple of errors there.



My local council is not a charitable trust.



You used the word "home" in the sentence above, I believe that what you are talking about is a "house" or "dwelling".





But ultimately we come back to the difference of opinion that I eluded to in my response, by your own admission you've only been working as a housing officer since 1998 and you can therefore be forgiven for having no knowledge of the original purpose for council housing, its a business to you, a matter of logistics and accountancy with little regard to the client but full regard to ticking boxes - quite sad really.

Would you say the average standard of living is higher or lower than it was at the turn of the 20th century - if you believe it is higher then how has that happened? Is that not a tangible example of the trickle down effect?



The market in housing has stalled because an outside factor has disrupted it i.e. the lack of available money. If the usual people who could get mortgages yesteryear could get mortgages now then more new affordable houses would be being built - the fact that nobody seems inclined to lend money right now then why would anyone build houses they cannot sell?

What Crow is doing is denying somebody on a low income the opportunity to rent his house?

Officiousness and without the ability to think or see outside the box.

i would have to ditto your [isad[/i sentiment.

No, that is not trickle-down economics.







They can easily sell them if they reduce the price.



Interesting which threads you're choosing to post on at the moment.

I



No he isn't, it is the failure to build sufficient homes that is denying someone on a low income a house.



That is not the fault of Bob Crow

Since we moved seriously to an economy based on neo-liberal ideology ('trickle down'/Reaganomics/Thatcherism), the cost of living has risen but income has declined for all but a very few.



We now have foodbanks growing massive;y, the Red Cross organising food parcels for UK people, Save the Children spending money in the UK rather than simply collecting it – and this in something like the seventh richest nation on Earth.



Trickle down is not working – and it never has.







Or ...



We could have a massive programme of building council housing that would be affordable for anyone, not just a few, or only on the basis of insane mortgages.



We are short hundreds of thousands of homes precisely because we have not, as a nation, built affordable housing for 20-odd years, not because the housing market has stalled a bit. Indeed, in the last year or so, the housing market has been going bonkers, with prices rising again massively. Housing is being built – and some of it is not even being put up for sale in this country, but advertised in the Far East. There's masses of building going on in my part of London – with prices in the ridiculous brackets for a one-bed flat on City Road, just north of Old Street: hardly a gentrified, quiet area.



The situation is unsustainable. And it's also completely counterproductive in terms of the national economy.

You talked of hypocrisy. I asked you for evidence. I'm still waiting.

so, what do people see the purpose of Social Housing to be, and if you believe that purpose to be more than housing of need in a problem situation, how do you propose funding it?



still laughing that gobbler think I am a housing officer

You've already had the first part of your question answered, the second part comes courtesy of 30 years of government thinking that council housing was not required.



The reversal of that thinking requires government to put back the money that was moved out of the housing budget over those years, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of politicians and accountants to find a way, they certainly found the funding during years of recession and some turmoil in the 1970s and early 80s but then again the attitude towards renting was totally different then.

so, no answers, as usual, just rhetoric.

We've got answers but first we'd like you to answer some from the last couple of days.



Gidiot is borrowing extra hundreds of £millions just to pay benefits, we borrowed £1.5tn to bail out the banks. There is ample scope to fund a massive house-building programme, the same as there was in the 1950s & 60s when this country was in an even worse financial state than it is now.



The only thing missing is political will

You've had the answers.



This is very simple - everyone knows what you try to do with this persona of "Standee" that you invented, we even have people who say that you admit to them face to face that you deliberately try and inflame situations for your own amusement although you won't do it in person, we know this, so it won't work, if you ask a question you'll get an answer, if you try and provoke a more reactive and inflammatory reply then you won't get one.

I would like some answers, other than "everyone else" when it comes to paying for things. You, and your like, want the world on a plate, but you don't want to pay for it.

"My like" ?



What "like" would that be then ?





Your answer has already been given - we need to restore what we previously had and its not beyond a government to do it if and when it has the political will to do it.



This isn't a party political issue as the lack of will to restore council housing stock exists across the House but there was a time, not long ago, when even Margaret Thatchers government were happy to provide investment in social housing via local councils and housing associations, and in a big way too, its before your era of expertise but there was a time when for ten years my job entailed almost entirely of surveying new build and refurb "social housing" schemes probably amounting to several thousand dwellings, the sort of investment that you can only dream of.



The era ?



1974 to 1984, an era of complete political turmoil, an era of two recessions, of three day weeks, of long strike bound periods when we couldn't get any steel onto sites - and still the political will found a way to raise finance for these huge investments.



That is all that is required.



And thats twice that I've answered your question.

still nothing about funding

You probably need to have a read of Thatcher and Callaghan's biographies and see where they raised the funding during times of economic strife, I'm sure the answer will still be relevant.

so you don't know, other than "someone else", true socialism, ideals and no ideas.

Its not my job to raise money for HM Government, I repeat, read up on how Margaret Thatchers government supported the ideal of social housing and raised money to pay for it right through her first term, at the least.



Does your online persona consider Thatcher to have been a socialist ?

online persona?



as I say, no answers to anything, just want "the man" to put his hand in his pocket. How many years since you last got a wage?

Jerry has said how it should be funded. Just because you disagree that it should be funded that way doesn't mean he hasn't given answer.

Last Friday, having owned and run my own business since 1984 until I sold it in 2007 I am now retained in a consultancy salaried role, I voted for Thatcher in two general elections, I have paid an awful lot of tax, personal and corporation over those 23 years, in my position as Managing Director of my company I was responsible for handing over an awful lot more tax on behalf of my employees, I know how the system works.



I'm not quite the old barstard socialist pensioner sitting in his coal miners cottage with a scuttle full of free coal that you thought I was am I ?





While you chew that over, go away and consider how Thatcher raised the finance for her social housing investment projects in the early 1980s, the answer to your question is right there.

I can only take people as I find them, and that is the way you come across.