Does this morning's news of an apparent government swing to the right by ruling out any membership of the/a customs union after Brexit have any impact on how long we think May can last? Is there likely to come a point where anti-hard-line-Brexit Tory and Labour MPs will actually put what they see as the national interest first and vote down the hard-liners, and could May, dedicated to support of a hard Brexit and uninterested in any attempt at national reconciliation, survive such defeats?
I notice Jacob Rees-Mogg is now favorite in the bookies and polls to be the next Tory leader. Goodness me, a man on loan from the 18th century as leader of a major political party. A man who toured council estates in his Bentley with his nanny to canvas for support! Lets not look at his voting record on social issues. This is a man who thinks abortion is wrong even when the women involved was raped.
The best description of him i have seen recently came via Matthew Paris quoting the novelist Robert Harris, who has described Rees-Mogg as the “barmaid's idea of a gentleman"
There already *is* a "bedroom tax" on privately owned homes. Council Tax is higher if you have a more valuable house
Potentially. Perhaps it is more common in the south but at home the differentials will be nowhere near as big. I suspect my terraced houses in Darlington were in the same band as the council estate round the corner.
Which we still benefit from in MK despite the very low Council Tax
A 6% rise is suggested for next year.
In our exchanges I can normally see your point of view, even if I don’t always agree with it. I must say I really do struggle to understand where you’re coming from on this one!
That's because you live in the south and I come from the north east. Life is easy down south
Someone who owns their own property in the private sector has presumably bought it at market value (prices of course increase per bedroom). It is their property bought with their money. If they’ve achieved some success and paid into society and bought themselves a property they love and wish to remain in, good for them. Who the hell is the government to turn round to them and penalise them? They already pay:
- a higher acquisition price for the property (hence higher stamp duty);
- a higher council tax band.
Zero rate SDLT on first time buyers upto £300k? 0% on all transactions upto £125k? That will move the vast majority of buyers out of the tax envelope where I come from. You also pay 2% on the difference between £125k & £250k rather than 2% on the lot as in the past. That seems like a generous back hander in the grand scheme of things.
I agree that,
potentially, you may pay a higher level of council tax. That will be true down south. At home, as I say, I am unsure.
Most importantly, they are not depriving anyone else of the use of this property.
We shall agree to disagree. There is a housing shortage in this country regardless of your level of status. I am not suggesting anyone in their own home be moved but that shortage is is worth acknowledging.
Council houses on the other hand are (or should be!) a temporary safety net for those in need. These properties do not belong to the tenants, who merely have the use of them.
they should have security of tenure like any other tennant.
There is a limited amount of housing in the public sector so that which is there needs to be allocated efficiently. Reducing housing benefit for those who selfishly refuse to vacate a property that is too big for their needs, thereby denying it to those with a greater need, seems as good a way of doing it as any.
I agree - as long as suitable housing is available locally and someone from, say, Newcastle, isnt expected to move to Penzance. That is the key point for me: Suitable local housing. You should not be punished by a government (who detest your very existence) you but cant provide you with a home to meet up with their desires!
I also find it interesting that Tories are happy to treat council house scum like chattels and move them at a whim.
The point you’re over looking is that someone who wins the lottery who lives in a private flat is already paying market rent for a private property. If they move out someone else will move in and also pay market rent.
Charging a market rent for a council house should never occur in my opinion because:
1. someone able to pay market rent should be renting in the private sector like everyone else!
2. Allowing someone who is able to pay market rent to remain in a council property deprives someone of a greater need who would be unable to rent such a property in the private sector.
I would take the increased money and use it to fund accommodation somewhere else in the borough. I would rather the tax payer kept the money rather than give it to a private landlord. I thought you would be all for clawing back money from benefit spongers
It does matter to the government (or the council) when they are trying to allocate publicly owned houses. It also matters to those who are perhaps on a waiting list for larger accommodation.
there isnt enough accommodation to go round - that breaks the system immediately . Do you agree it is unfair to punish someone when you cant offer them the solution?
Remember council houses are not owned by the tenants. Therefore if the number of bedrooms in the house the have the use of - not their house - exceeds their needs it’s hardly unreasonable to expect them to move.
it is their house in exactly the same way that the house rented privately is the the house of the person renting it. The tenant has security of tenure. I am accused up thread of wanting to move to property confiscation. Moving one set of tenants on a whim could e seen as the slippery slope to breaking security of tenure for private renters.
Down the road there is a small group of local authority properties (recently built, definitely not privately owned). These are relatively large, spacious houses with gardens. They contain families with late teenage/adult children who can apparently afford to drive around in £40,000 Mercs and Audis.
They will be on lease. There are scutters round here driving Range Rovers and there is no way they can afford them. They aren't council tenants though. Everyone seems to buy a car on PCP these days - that's the next sub prime mortgage finance problem btw.
Is it any wonder there’s resentment !?
the goal of the Conservative Party since time began - inverse wealth envy
Indeed, or alternatively if one is on a very low income, lives in subsidised housing and uses this saving to buy expensive cars and other luxuries that would otherwise be beyond their means, that is also a poor use of council resources which should be allocated to the needy.
If someone analysed how many times the word "wibble" appeared on these forums, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be used most often in your posts. You seem very fond of it.
because forum rules prevent me from responding to you in the manner I would prefer.
If we had the sort of government that introduced a tax on property owners with more bedrooms than they need to sleep in, it would monitor the results. The purpose, presumably, would be to persuade those owners to move to somewhere smaller. Initially, some would. Others would decide to pay the tax so that they could stay in the place they wanted to be. When the government saw that the rate of moving out of larger properties into smaller ones was dropping, it would be likely to take steps to push it up. Raising the tax would be one step. Such a government might keep pushing up the tax to achieve its social organisational objectives. What might not have been "punitive" to start with would probably become so, accompanied by propaganda to tell people how wicked those owners were if they were trying to stay in the place they had paid for, and to put social pressure on them to move. There's plenty of evidence over the past 100 years of how such governments increase the pressure. If financial pressure doesn't have the desired effect then force is likely to follow: people are shifted to the sort of property the government has decided is right for them. It's unlikely that, in those circumstances, the government would do much to return to the people being moved the additional value of the home they were being moved out of.
Are you Paul Dacre?
I don't suppose all of that is part of your plan; you're probably not looking beyond the implementation of the tax you've advocated and which you've said you'd be probably be paying yourself. But once things start down that sort of road they are likely to go a lot further than their original advocates expected.
Complete Daily Mail inspired balderdash.
Is it because I iz pompous?
