How low can the Tory's get?

[ViolentPanda]

Of course they're not interested in saving money or getting people work - their actions are proving the complete opposite. More people to demonise and more free labour for big businesses.

Sure, but it goes beyond adding bodies to the reserve pool of labour. It's also about making what are currently mostly rhetorical or verbal significators of division - talk about "scroungers" etc - into codified divisions. Perhaps not in the sense of physically ghettoising people, but in locating people very obviously in one "camp" or another. That's what UC is, in the longer run, going to be about; stigmatising anyone who needs any state assistance, no matter how narrow or temporary, as "beyond the pale" for daring to want something back for what the government takes.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Like most policies, it seems to be a deliberate attempt to break up poorer communities, push people off old 'assured' tenancies, keep people mobile and on their toes. It won't save money, but it will make the jobless feel insecure and isolated, with increased cost for mental health services, crime (significantly higher in more transient areas than settled ones).

The fucking obvious solution of building more housing, at a time when the cost of government borrowing is still stupidly low, and when there are a lot of people not working that could be employed building this housing, is somehow non-obvious to the Bullingdon rabble. The cost of borrowing this money would be offset by increased taxes (and lower benefits) from increased employment, and from the reduced housing benefit bill achieved by taking people out of expensive private accommodation and placing them in new build accommodation. What's stopping them? Idiocy or ideology?

Idiocy, ideology and the fact that the housing price bubble is currently propping up the economy, and if the bubble started to deflate, Osborne's lousy governance would be even more obvious. rather than an economy with mildly negative or mildly positive growth, we'd be heading downhill at a rate of knots.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What happened to all the money that was raised through the right-to-buy scheme? Where are those houses?

The money was deliberately ringfenced away from funding new build, at much the same time as the legislation went through that put a stop to the "first refusal" policy local authorities originally had on properties that had been RtBed.
Yep, that's right. Until the mid'80s, if you bought, you had to give your local authority first refusal to buy back. There was a mechanism whereby councils could retain stock.

 

[Thora]

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

Even worse is all the disabled people being charged bedroom tax because they live in specially adapted homes (that often have to be bigger in order to install lifts, widen hallways for wheelchairs etc) - it is impossible for them to just move to a different house or move to the private sector, and they have often had to wait years already for the council to find and adapt appropriate accommodation for them. Most people affected by the bedroom tax are disabled themselves or have disabled children living with them.

 

[Tricky Mickey]

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's try and engage sensibly and respectfully because, frankly, you don't seem to see how offensive it is to have posted as you did.

Q: Why should this woman have a two-bed flat?

A: Because she is grieving and in a difficult situation, and it is a humane and compassionate thing to do.

Let me now play devil's advocate with you:

Why stop at just taxing a spare room in the unfortunate event of a council tenant's mother's death? Why not move a stranger in to fill the empty room at market rent? It would raise more money, after all.

Going further, why should people in social housing be allowed a front room - why not instead rent that out to another stranger, or a couple, at market rent?

 

[two sheds]

Piece in West Briton this week saying that the bedroom tax is going to push up housing benefit claims in Cornwall because there isn't much social provision housing and so people will be forced out into private renting which will cost more.

Quartz, remind us next time you start a thread saying that you're having a particular, depressing problem so that we can play devil's advocate by saying that what's happening to you is your own fucking fault.

 

[JimW]

<sensible comment snipped>

Are you sure you need both those sheds? I think it's time you relocated to a tiny Wendyhouse somewhere because, erm, inexorable market forces

 

[two sheds]

 

[_angel_]

Going further, why should people in social housing be allowed a front room - why not instead rent that out to another stranger, or a couple, at market rent?

Don't give 'em ideas for heavens sake!!

 

[coley]

One of the most revealing elements of this part of the landlord class is when you look at the noticeboard of your local vegetarian restaurant/café, health food shop, even peace centre, etc and notice the rooms/flats available, say 'No DHSS allowed....

Can you imagine how full the guardhouse would be of squaddies on punishment for filling in an MP?



Nah, equal to the cost of a local homeless hostel and a cuppa and bun from the Sally Army.

Your a hard man VP

 

[ViolentPanda]

Your a hard man VP

I'm also fair. There are, after all, people who'd give their eye-teeth for a hostel bed, a cuppa and a bun.

 

[coley]

I'm also fair. There are, after all, people who'd give their eye-teeth for a hostel bed, a cuppa and a bun.

True enough but why should we pay for MPs to have a second home? they chose to work in London, a hotel allowance should be more than enough.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Piece in West Briton this week saying that the bedroom tax is going to push up housing benefit claims in Cornwall because there isn't much social provision housing and so people will be forced out into private renting which will cost more.

The road to hell is paved with hellish intentions.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Sure, but it goes beyond adding bodies to the reserve pool of labour. It's also about making what are currently mostly rhetorical or verbal significators of division - talk about "scroungers" etc - into codified divisions. Perhaps not in the sense of physically ghettoising people, but in locating people very obviously in one "camp" or another. That's what UC is, in the longer run, going to be about; stigmatising anyone who needs any state assistance, no matter how narrow or temporary, as "beyond the pale" for daring to want something back for what the government takes.

But UC effectively puts everyone on benefits automatically as their situation changes. Isn't there a danger that this will backfire for the Tories? In some ways it puts a whole lot more people in the same camp if the economy gets shit enough.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But UC effectively puts everyone on benefits automatically as their situation changes. Isn't there a danger that this will backfire for the Tories? In some ways it puts a whole lot more people in the same camp if the economy gets shit enough.

I'm not sure they believe they have anything to fear. They're possibly banking on people being as supine on benefits as they have been for the last 20 years or so.
Will it backfire? I strongly suspect so. Give those who might currently hold harsh views about benefits a taste of the regime, and there's a possibility of things igniting as with the Poll Tax.
At least, I hope so. If opprobrium comes from a wider base than just claimants and media liberals, then the (outside, IMO ) chance is there for a conflagration that'll both burn the Tories out of power for another generation, and scare the neoliberal fucks in Labour and the Lib-Dems badly enough that they will keep a weather eye to not offending the electorate.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

As they have not specified sizing for bedrooms it is possible that box rooms that you couldn't swing a cat in will be designated as bedrooms thereby trapping more people into losing part of thier benefits

 

[coley]

No, you need them to have a slender majority or they will just continue the slash n burn, Milliband hasn't made one reference to undoing the Shyte that has been foisted on us this last two years.

 

[ViolentPanda]

No, you need them to have a slender majority or they will just continue the slash n burn, Milliband hasn't made one reference to undoing the Shyte that has been foisted on us this last two years.

They (Eds Bollocks and Militwat) already said, a couple of years ago that they'll probably "have to" keep the austerity cuts. I've as much faith in Labour doing right by the electorate as I have in Kelvin McKenzie doing the decent thing and publicly eviscerating himself with a rusty junior hacksaw blade.

 

[coley]

They (Eds Bollocks and Militwat) already said, a couple of years ago that they'll probably "have to" keep the austerity cuts. I've as much faith in Labour doing right by the electorate as I have in Kelvin McKenzie doing the decent thing and publicly eviscerating himself with a rusty junior hacksaw blade.

So, falling a mass lamppost fandango we are, whey,present and next generation anyway, are screwed?

 

[ViolentPanda]

So, falling a mass lamppost fandango we are, whey,present and next generation anyway, are screwed?

Yep.

All the more reason to string the fuckers up, I'd say!

 

[coley]

Yep.

All the more reason to string the fuckers up, I'd say!

 

[coley]

Nice idea, but unlikely, unfortunately

 

[treelover]

reports coming out those guilty of benefit fraud will lose benefits for three years, incredible..

 

[ymu]

As they have not specified sizing for bedrooms it is possible that box rooms that you couldn't swing a cat in will be designated as bedrooms thereby trapping more people into losing part of thier benefits

It would be possible for a suicidally nasty housing association/council, but apart from one (unconfirmed?) rumour that a Tory council were considering designating dining rooms as bedrooms, they all seem to be moving in the other direction to avoid being bankrupted by rent arrears. Some HAs are reclassifying flats as one bed, including at least one that is reclassifying anything in a tower block regardless of size because families don't want them so they need singles and couples to be able to take them (and this is the reason some were offered 'too much' space in the first place).

 

[coley]

reports coming out those guilty of benefit fraud will lose benefits for three years, incredible..

Two words, parliamentary expenses.

 

[coley]

It would be possible for a suicidally nasty housing association/council, but apart from one (unconfirmed?) rumour that a Tory council were considering designating dining rooms as bedrooms, they all seem to be moving in the other direction to avoid being bankrupted by rent arrears. Some HAs are reclassifying flats as one bed, including at least one that is reclassifying anything in a tower block regardless of size because families don't want them so they need singles and couples to be able to take them (and this is the reason some were offered 'too much' space in the first place).

A bedroom "investigative quango" will soon sort that out.

 

[ymu]

This might be the one good thing about Labour privatising social housing. The Tories wont fuck the HAs over as badly as they would councils, and I'm hoping it's all too intertwined for them to single councils out, if there are HAs being sensible (which seems likely in areas where councils are also sensible).

 

[yield]

This might be the one good thing about Labour privatising social housing. The Tories wont fuck the HAs over as badly as they would councils, and I'm hoping it's all too intertwined for them to single councils out, if there are HAs being sensible (which seems likely in areas where councils are also sensible).

Some of the Housing Associations are bad enough as it is that the Tories won't need to do a thing.

They flout their charitable not for profit status and a number have been caught changing market rents. Many are already at 80%

 

[ymu]

That's not what I said. There are two posts to take into account for the context, mind.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

There's a statue of Bevan in my hometown of Cardiff and lordy it makes me proud. Was put up when I was a teenager and got me to think a lot more postively about centre left politics than from a place of fighting the thatcherite ideology (without going into detail I both sides of the miners strike and other arguments were very live in my direct experience)

But I'm sure Anerarin would himself conceed that these days we are far more enlightened about the sentience, rights and respect due to the non humans with which we share the planet.

I doubt the insensitive comparison to vermin would be made today. Vermin are generally intelligent and compassionate.