Tony Blair was right. At least once. “Why don’t you tackle directly the excessive rents being charged by private landlords rather than making tenants the victim,” he wisely said when leader of the opposition. As the House of Lords are debating whether families should have their benefits capped at £26,000 per annum – regardless of how […]
Posts under ‘Housing’
UK stagnation turns to risk of double-dip recession
Dec 30th, 2011 by Michael Burke.The Construction Products Association (CPA) is forecasting a ‘double-dip’ UK recession for the construction industry in 2012 and compares the latest slump to that of 10 years ago – the last Tory recession under Major when 600,000 construction industry jobs were lost. The CPA is well-placed to judge the near-term outlook as it comprises all the […]
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Tory sub-prime mortgage scam exposed
Nov 21st, 2011 by Michael Meacher.According to the Government’s ‘housing strategy’ paper to be announced today, the Tories are about to build some houses. So far, so good, though quite a surprise since in this last year housing completions shrank to their lowest level since 1923. But let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. According to Cameron, it […]
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Labour’s shame on empty homes
Nov 3rd, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Late on Tuesday night, the government rushed through the criminalisation of homeless people squatting in residential buildings with fines of up to £5,000 and a year in jail. To his credit, Labour MP John McDonnell tabled several amendments, including one that would have exempted squatters in buildings which had been empty for six months or […]
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Campaign for a ‘Living Rent’
Oct 31st, 2011 by Lutfur Rahman.With average rents in the private sector now over £1,000 a month, and all tenants except those on the highest wages feeling the pinch, this story about the plight of ordinary Londoner Sharada Osman shines a light on some harsh realities of our city’s housing market.
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How Grant Shapps is ‘tackling homelessness’
Sep 9th, 2011 by David Osler.‘Tackling homelessness and rough sleeping is what first got me into politics,’ Conservative housing minister Grant Shapps emphasised in a Department of Communities and Local Government press release just over a week ago. I’m glad to hear it, and it is obviously not for me to doubt the sincerity of a man who famously once spent Christmas […]
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Eviction is the weapon of choice against the poor
Aug 30th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.We have now come full circle on housing. After the Second World War a massive building programme for social housing was launched by the Attlee Government and continued by Macmillan through the 1950s. Thatcher began to unwind this process in the 1980s by drastically reducing local authority house-building from 200,000 a year to just 30,000 […]
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Lying about homelessness isn’t the main scandal
Jul 5th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.It’s bad enough that Ministers repeatedly lied in concealing their predictions about the growth of homelessness due to their own measures. But what matters a lot more is what’s going to be done to avert potentially the worst social crisis in Britain for decades. Having to subsist on poverty rations is dreadful, but not having […]
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What the budget should have done for Londoners
Mar 24th, 2011 by Ken Livingstone.It is clear that the economic policies being pursued by the Conservatives under George Osborne and Boris Johnson are not working. Unemployment is rising and millions of Londoners are feeling squeezed by rising costs. London needed a budget that delivers economic growth and invests in the future of London. That means lower taxes for the majority, […]
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You can keep your home, but only if you buy it!
Nov 23rd, 2010 by Jon Lansman.The decision of the government to extend right-to-buy sales not only in time but also in scope — to housing association tenants — is disastrous, but also completely at odds with its other attacks on tenants and those in housing need. The attack on tenants’ security of tenure through regular reviews and fixed tenancies for […]
