My OperaLike Two Packets of Soap Flakes
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 8:47:21 PM
It's official – socialism is dead! Long live the Right. Peasant bashing is flavour of the month.
This time a labour MP wades in swinging her shillelagh. How appalling that half of those in 'social housing' don't work! We must end this dependency culture!
Whoa! Wait a minute! We have a chicken and egg situation here.
What possible reasons could there be for not following the Ancient Mariner and burdening yourself with an Albatross of a mortgage? Well quite a few really but let's list one or two candidates:
a) Rocketing cost of housing – not controlled by the UK government (they could have put a limit on the mortgage multiplier e.g. 3 x annual salary).
b) Concentration in the South East – why hasn't any substantial government department been moved out of London? The NE has considerable empty housing stocks but senior officials don't want to go there.
c) Escalating prices of travel costs – the railway shambles left by Major (could anyone have devised a more ludicrous way of breaking up the network?)
d) Sky high fuel bills – agreed this is a world-wide problem but the energy companies are still raking in nice fat profits.
The people who, generally, live in 'social housing' are too poor to buy their own homes. They must be work-shy layabouts! Of course they are – every single one of them! Well maybe not. How about:
Long-term sick (e.g. health ruined working in the mines)
Disabled
Single parents (some of whom will have been forced to bring up children after the death of their partners)
Carers (saving the NHS a fortune)
The Elderly (who have been unable to buy property)
So why do I say it's a chicken and egg situation? In a word ghettoisation. If you have a council estate address your chances of getting a job are reduced. If you can't get a job you can't move out. If you can't move out you fall into the depression of living in such an area where policing is ineffective and education is sub-standard. Holding down a job becomes more difficult if you are kept awake at night by roaming gangs of youths, drunken neighbours, crack-heads and other low-lifes. I have worked on some of these estates so I know what they are like.
The pronouncements of Hazel Bliers are just so much hot air. This rich anti-socialist just wants to get noticed. She doesn't want to tackle the real problems of these estates – she just wants headlines. Sounds like she should join the Tories (but then again Cameron's party is far too left wing for most New Labour politicians these days).
This time a labour MP wades in swinging her shillelagh. How appalling that half of those in 'social housing' don't work! We must end this dependency culture!
Whoa! Wait a minute! We have a chicken and egg situation here.
What possible reasons could there be for not following the Ancient Mariner and burdening yourself with an Albatross of a mortgage? Well quite a few really but let's list one or two candidates:
a) Rocketing cost of housing – not controlled by the UK government (they could have put a limit on the mortgage multiplier e.g. 3 x annual salary).
b) Concentration in the South East – why hasn't any substantial government department been moved out of London? The NE has considerable empty housing stocks but senior officials don't want to go there.
c) Escalating prices of travel costs – the railway shambles left by Major (could anyone have devised a more ludicrous way of breaking up the network?)
d) Sky high fuel bills – agreed this is a world-wide problem but the energy companies are still raking in nice fat profits.
The people who, generally, live in 'social housing' are too poor to buy their own homes. They must be work-shy layabouts! Of course they are – every single one of them! Well maybe not. How about:
Long-term sick (e.g. health ruined working in the mines)
Disabled
Single parents (some of whom will have been forced to bring up children after the death of their partners)
Carers (saving the NHS a fortune)
The Elderly (who have been unable to buy property)
So why do I say it's a chicken and egg situation? In a word ghettoisation. If you have a council estate address your chances of getting a job are reduced. If you can't get a job you can't move out. If you can't move out you fall into the depression of living in such an area where policing is ineffective and education is sub-standard. Holding down a job becomes more difficult if you are kept awake at night by roaming gangs of youths, drunken neighbours, crack-heads and other low-lifes. I have worked on some of these estates so I know what they are like.
The pronouncements of Hazel Bliers are just so much hot air. This rich anti-socialist just wants to get noticed. She doesn't want to tackle the real problems of these estates – she just wants headlines. Sounds like she should join the Tories (but then again Cameron's party is far too left wing for most New Labour politicians these days).
