That first step to owning a home is taken away
I BELIEVE everybody void of home ownership should be entitled to that first stepping stone to owning their first home, ie, a council house.
But Margaret Thatcher stopped building them through her Premiership almost 30 years ago, and virtually none have been built since, thereby taking away people's rights to that first stepping stone to owning their own home.
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This automatically takes away from people the dignity of paying their own rent, and being responsible for their own lives in their own Community, within the Society they live.
The State has a duty to provide the basic necessities like social housing to enable people, to empower people, away from the repressive means test system in the high rent private sector, and not as it is now, to be forever on some sort of means tested State benefit, from housing benefit to council tax benefit stuck in the high rent private sector, stuck with unfair local taxes.
These are all part of the repressive system that is Britain, because means testing is repressive, when people are caught up in means testing they are repressed, which can lead to depression because once in the system, it is impossible by fair means or foul to climb out of it.
It is always to the extreme right of Tory Governments beginning with Margaret Thatcher's statement that there is no such thing as society, just individuals, that she rolled back the State. This included stopping council house building for those who could not afford to buy and bringing in poll tax, which is council tax because neither were or are based on ability to pay. Both replaced increasing income tax to fund local services.
So Mr Bedford, in a letter about Brixham, I have taken your first statement and turned it on its own ear, because thanks to Thatcher and her supporters, almost 30 years ago, millions of British people today are still not able to have dignity in their own lives, because neither can be achieved without a home you can call your own — rented or bought — a secure reasonably paid job or a fair tax system.
In the 1980s people had their dignity taken from them by Margaret Thatcher's right wing repressive, free-market agenda, which deployed means testing in housing, local taxation, and pensions, and that repressive free market system remains today.
This includes Brixham with its haves and have nots, with its rich and very poor, with its benefits culture induced by extremely high house prices very low wages, and total lack of social housing, plus the ever-increasing council tax which has replaced income tax increases to fund local services, which no Mayor of Torbay can sort out.
MICHAEL THOMPSON, Link-Age/Countrywide & member of The Devon Pensioners Action Forum
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by michael, Brixham
Friday, September 03 2010, 10:22PM
“/////This is NOT what social housing should be about.
Social housing should go to hard working families who want to get on the property ladder and improve their lives not to lazy individuals who sit on their
backsides all day with no intention of ever applying for a job. My relative tells me that most of the houses have huge widescreen tellies and most families run cars.//////
gill, Torquay, Social housing was meant for people who could not afford to buy.
You and your relative see what you want to see.
Why should unemployed people starve and go without, unemployed people in Europe have these items, and welfare payments in Europe are higher and non means tested, work that one out”
by Michael, Brixham
Friday, September 03 2010, 1:07PM
“Ant Paignton, //////The free market does not serve us well when we have a situation where housing is treated as an investment opportunity and the rise in the cost of housing is seen as a positive thing.//////
Trouble is this is exactly what the free market is all about ( profit before people )”
by michael, Brixham
Friday, September 03 2010, 1:00PM
“Mark Torquay, //////it's just that today we pay to house them in prison rather than housing them in homes. The media mantra of 'lock 'em up' fuels the individualistic mindset and further alienates the rest. ///////
A Brlliant observation. A return to victorian values where the only refuge for the poor, is the streets, and if they break the law just to survive, then they are locked up.
In my view any society that treat's people this way, should be locked up and the key thrown away, and I mean that.”
by Ant, Paignton
Thursday, September 02 2010, 5:27PM
“Ahh my last post has got out of sync. Was a reply to Marks prev post !”
by Ant, Paignton
Thursday, September 02 2010, 1:54PM
“Don't really get what you're driving at Mark.
I cannot dispute your prognosis on the globalisation of the economy and the bearing it has had on Torbay. Despite the conservatives belief in the "free" ( ie let only the strong survive) market, they and all governments ARE managing the economy.
My point is loosely this. The free market does not serve us well when we have a situation where housing is treated as an investment opportunity and the rise in the cost of housing is seen as a positive thing. This means we have absolutely HUGE amounts of money just sitting around in bricks and mortar, far beyond the actual value of the investment we have to make in it - for most people a huge loan and 25 years of paying interest charges ; and we doom our younger generation to the daunting prospect of toiling for their 3 score in order to own a house.
Why are property developers so resistant to building the cheaper houses that we actually need to address the housing problem? Yes ¿ it¿s a rhetorical question!
I think we would be better served with some intervention by government and the building of truly cheap housing ¿ ie new materials and designs, mass produced pre-fabs. The Scandinavians and Americans seem quite happy in wooden houses.”