The way to cut housing benefit payouts is to increase the supply of affordable, social housing and cap all rents, social and private. Labour is missing its target because it is focusing on the wrong one. For a long time, housing benefit has allowed unscrupulous landlords to charge inflated rents for low quality housing. The […]
Posts under ‘Housing’
Building programme needed, not Coalition housing chaos
Oct 29th, 2010 by Len McCluskey.Chaotic coalition policies on housing benefit are causing alarm and distress to families and children who have the misfortune to be poor and living in Britain’s inner cities. The plan for an ill-considered cap on housing benefit smacks of the sort of political opportunism which has already become the hallmark of the ConDems.
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Cameron is a housing benefit scrounger
Oct 27th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.Thanks to Hopi Sen for pointing out that David Cameron is himself a housing benefit scrounger. David Cameron believes that housing claims of over £20,000 a year are unfair. He has a point. I can think of one benefits scrounger who has repeatedly claimed more than this, despite having a perfectly adequate home in London. David […]
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Death warrant for social housing
Oct 19th, 2010 by Michael Meacher.Of all the viciousness of the cuts to be unveiled tomorrow, arguably the most vicious of all is the callous decision to virtually stop social/affordable house-building altogether. These are public sector houses/flats priced above the cost of construction, but below local private market levels. They are the only way that the lowest-income 15-20% of the […]
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Housing is at the epicentre of the political divide
Oct 6th, 2010 by Michael Meacher.The hoo-ha over axing child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers goes on – rightly, but for the wrong reasons. But it is extraordinary that what is a relatively minor detriment for the upper middle classes continues to attract blanket news whilst what is little short of catastrophe for working class jobless households – the cap on […]
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The Brave New Labour World of Policymaking
Jul 13th, 2010 by David Hide.Many of us believe that the 13 years of a Labour Government corresponded with the diminution and subsequent demolition of democracy within the Labour Party. The introduction of Partnership in Power (PiP) ended meaningful debate at our Annual Conference as party policy making was shunted off stage right into the National Policy Forum (NPF). While […]
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Budget contradictions keep tumbling out
Jun 28th, 2010 by Michael Meacher.The latest study of the impact of the Budget by the Fabian Society, published yesterday, using a plausible quantitative model of the effects of public service cuts, confirms what we suspected, namely that the poorest tenth in the population will be hit much harder – 6 times harder – than the richest tenth. This […]
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Ed Balls on immigration deserves to lose Left votes
Jun 7th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.So Ed Balls has aligned himself with David Goodhart, Editor of Progress, who (as we previously discussed here) argues Labour must become the anti-immigration party. “Britain should not have rejected transitional controls on migration from the first wave of new EU member states,” he argues, and in the future we must keep in place temporary restrictions on […]
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Tough on immigration. Not so tough on the reasons it causes problems
May 24th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.Immigration is becoming a key issue for reflection in the aftermath of Labour’s election defeat. Owen Tudor, Head of the TUC’s European Union and International Relations Department, expresses concern that “the contestants are in danger of repeating or worse exaggerating the errors of New Labour’s capitulation to right-wing ideas on migration – being tough on migration […]
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Jon Cruddas on Immigration
May 18th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.The decision by Jon Cruddas not to stand for Leadership should come as no surprise. His campaign for Deputy made clear that he sought a campaigning role, working with the unions, reinvigorating the party at its grassroots, rather than a leadership role. Some of his supporters then would not have supported him for Leader. His […]
