How low can the Tory's get?

[inferno]

My wife's friend aged 50 got divorced after 30 years of marriage and went back to live with her mother in the 3 bed council house that her mother had lived in for the best part of 50 years.

Then they were told to move or pay an extra £11 per week rent because they had a spare bedroom, so 12 months ago they moved to a 2 bedroom flat.

Two weeks ago her mother died and she has now been told that she will have to pay an extra £11 per week unless she moves to a 1 bed flat.

How fucking low can these Tory cunts get

 

[Puddy_Tat]

 

[Quartz]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

 

[Firky]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

Lets not. Now fuck off.

 

[coley]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

Lets play devils advocate and change the rules and say that anyone willing to move to a one bedroom flat in their area is exempt from penalties, ditto those stuck in two or three bedroom housing because there is no one bedroom flats available, sound fair?

 

[toggle]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

so you want to be told you have to move out of your home that you shared with a loved one a couple of weeks after their death?

 

[JimW]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

Because only a short-sighted bellend would imagine that the solution to the housing crisis is running people about like they're on wheels rather than giving secure tenure and building the social housing stock required. By supporting fig leaf solutions that make out the problem lies with people whose circumstances change (like everyone's does) you show yourself up to be a moron.

 

[Firky]

you show yourself up to be a moron.

That is a very polite way of calling someone a tory.

 

[JimW]

That is a very polite way of calling someone a tory.

Only they know it's bollocks but have blaming the poor to get themselves off the hook as the key strategy.

 

[Quartz]

Lets not. Now fuck off.

Sorry, I don't play that game. If you don't like what I write, put me on ignore.

Because only a short-sighted bellend would imagine that the solution to the housing crisis is running people about like they're on wheels rather than giving secure tenure and building the social housing stock required. By supporting fig leaf solutions that make out the problem lies with people whose circumstances change (like everyone's does) you show yourself up to be a moron.

Perhaps you missed theDevil's Advocate bit?

 

[existentialist]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

Does continuity mean nothing to you? Should they be forced to move at every change in circumstance, or every whim of a government official? And what - if is clearly the case - there are no suitable smaller flats to move to?

ETA: Actually, forget I replied. I have a feeling you don't come to this with clean hands, and I'm not really interested in false-flag "devil's advocate" debates which turn out to be anything but.

 

[JimW]

Sorry, I don't play that game. If you don't like what I write, put me on ignore.



Perhaps you missed theDevil's Advocate bit?

That's a figleaf too though.

 

[ddraig]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

there are not enough 1 bed places to do this
and in your scenario would a 'striving' family get precedence?

 

[Quartz]

That's a figleaf too though.

You are entitled to be wrong.

 

[tenniselbow]

Very, very low. Subterranean. Bastards.

 

[tenniselbow]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

Save this nonsense for the intro to philosophy class. The real world isn't amenable to these shallow utilitarian equations. The choice you present between hypothetical occupants is a false one. We're not forced into a choice here; it's about politics.

 

[tenniselbow]

And, on a moral level, human lives.

 

[story]

Save this nonsense for the intro to philosophy class. The real world isn't amenable to these shallow utilitarian equations. The choice you present between hypothetical occupants is a false one. We're not forced into a choice here; it's about politics.

This goes to the heart of the current debate about Thatcher's legacy.

I'm getting really tired of hearing how horrible things were in the 70s and how Thatcher got us out of the mess, gave Britain a sense of pride and purpose etc. as if the only alternative to Thatcher and Thatcherism was to be stuck in that state.

No, of course I don't want to "go back": I want to know what it would have been like had we moved on into some alternative without her.

It's not a choice about either her or what there was before: it's about policies and politics and people.

It's not having to choose about paying an extra £11 for a "spare" bedrooms, or going back to work with a bad back: it's about policies, and people's lives.

 

[existentialist]

This goes to the heart of the current debate about Tatcher's legacy.

I'm getting really tired of hearing how horrible things were in the 70s and how Thatcher got us out of the mess, gave Britain a sense of pride and purpose etc. as if the only alternative to Thatcher and Thatcherism was to be stuck in that state.

No, of course I don't want to "go back": I want to know what it would have been like had we moved on into some alternative without her.

It's not a choice about either her or what there was before: it's about policies and politics and people.

It's not having to choose about paying an extra £11 for a "spare" bedrooms, or going back to work with a bad back: it's about policies, and people's lives.

Actually, more than anything, it seems to be about hate.

We were encouraged to hate miners, Argentinians, the unemployed, people who wouldn't get "on their bike", "the left", etc., etc. Not just a kind of patronising disregard, but honest-to-goodness down-to-earth hatred. They were Less Than Us. I am a little too young to remember much before Thatcher, but I do recall that it felt like a new thing - this sudden gloves-off legitimisation of the process of dehumanising and writing off whole swathes of the population because of what they are.

I grew up in that milieu, and it's only been gently over the last 10 years that I have realised how inured we all have become to the idea that we're somehow entitled to sit in moral judgement on those "beneath" us. Blair and New Labour carried it on, but at least had the decency to be vaguely ashamed of it, but the gloves really came off when the Coalition came to power. And now, with the death of Thatcher reawakening the vibe of that time, it all fits together - Cameron et al are simply proudly picking up Thatcher's baton. The way to deal with those we perceive as unworthy is to hate them, be they the sick, disabled, unemployed or just plain unlucky. If they vote the "wrong" way, they're not worthy of any respect; if they dare to disagree with you on anything, they're beneath contempt.

I remember Cameron spouting on, when he became leader of the Opposition, about how he wanted a new kind of politics - one where it wasn't all adversarial and combative, but about constructive engagement and consensus. Look at him now.

 

[story]

yeah, that sounds about right.


ETA My little brother, who was born in 1974, says much the same thing, existentialist. He also says that Spitting Image was like a weekly horror show and left him with a sense of impending doom every Monday morning.

 

[two sheds]

I remember Cameron spouting on, when he became leader of the Opposition, about how he wanted a new kind of politics - one where it wasn't all adversarial and combative, but about constructive engagement and consensus. Look at him now.

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony ...

 

[andysays]

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Why should she have a two bed flat? Would you not rather a family that needed a two bed flat had it?

OK, let me play Devil's Advocate.

If you're going to argue that need is the only criteria (a perfectly reasonable position to take), presumably you'd be happy if all the MPs who currently have two homes, paid for to a considerable extent by the same tax payers who ultimately fund council housing, were turfed out their of one of their homes and people in genuine need were able to benefit...?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

We were encouraged to hate miners, Argentinians, the unemployed, people who wouldn't get "on their bike", "the left", etc., etc.

And this time round, the hate seems to be targetted on fewer people - the unions are smaller in number and membership, and even the respectable faces of racism and homophobia are less likely to be considered vote-winners now (I suppose in some ways that's progress, but...)

 

[Poot]

It costs a fortune to move house.

 

[Wilf]

Save this nonsense for the intro to philosophy class. The real world isn't amenable to these shallow utilitarian equations. The choice you present between hypothetical occupants is a false one. We're not forced into a choice here; it's about politics.

Spot on, esp about it being about politics. And where does the utilitarianism end? Parents grieving the loss of a child, 2 weeks to get the funeral done and then cut their HB? What's a 'decent interval'?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

It costs a fortune to move house.

indeed.

there have - for quite some years - been schemes to assist people (generally older people) to move to smaller social housing properties to free larger properties up for families, and in some cases there is / has been an option to move somewhere else, e.g. seaside towns. This has usually involved removals / redecorating costs, and more importantly it's been optional.

a system that consists of "fuck off out of your secure social tenancy and take your chances in the private rented sector, even if you can scrape together a thumping big deposit and find a landlord who will take a tenant who's on housing benefit, and then find another tenancy and thumping big deposit in 6 months' time when the landlord tells you to sod off" includes neither.

 

[Firky]

It costs a fortune to move house.

Forcibly moving house is recognised as one of the most stressful upheavals that a person can go through. I can't imagine what it must be like if you're still grieving for the death of your child to cancer. A year isn't very long to mourn the death of your child.

Move out or be penalised:

​

No room for grief: Council charges dead girl's family £672 for 'under-occupied' house​

​

Grieving parents of a young cancer victim have been told they must pay £672 a year in bedroom tax – for leaving their daughter’s room untouched in her memory.​

​

Seven-year-old Becky Bell’s ashes have been kept in her bedroom, left exactly as it was when she died of brain cancer last January.​

​

But parents, Julie and Mark, of Hartlepool, have been told it will be classed as a “spare room” and they must pay £56 a month from April.​

​

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/becky-bell-died-of-brain-cancer-1559718#ixzz2QMhLvwLo

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

It costs a fortune to move house.

that +
if you are currently on a rent capped at 40% of market price after your move you will have the privilege of your rent now being capped at 80% of market price...
very nice if you have to pay, and dumb for people in receivership of housing benefit as the new rent for the smaller place will be bigger than the old one.

 

[quimcunx]

like so many of the other policies it's not like this even saves the govt money.

 

[Quartz]

OK, let me play Devil's Advocate.

If you're going to argue that need is the only criteria (a perfectly reasonable position to take), presumably you'd be happy if all the MPs who currently have two homes, paid for to a considerable extent by the same tax payers who ultimately fund council housing, were turfed out their of one of their homes and people in genuine need were able to benefit...?

Actually, I have suggested before that they use military barracks.