Mar 14, 2019 at 10:01 AM | TinyCO2
Yes, the UK lost its sole source of new affordable rented housing!

The UK has expensive property with high demand for anything at the "cheaper" end of the market, being bought by "buy to let" investors.

At the upper ends of the market, the UK is seen as a safe haven for investment by the wealthy with reasons to need a safe haven.

Thank you for the clarification about Tory Party Leadership elections. May got in because she was the middle ground, least likely to offend Remainers and Brexiteers, and MPs were desperate to avoid ending up with Boris. Time has not changed everything.

gc, council's weren't allowed to reinvest the money because the plan was to get rid of the responsibility of housing. So we pay a fortune for hotels and rented property instead. In the case of flats, when it comestime to demolish and or renovate, the owner occupiers would be a pain. Potentially an expensive pain.

May can't be evicted for 12 months but should she step down, the MPs choose two candidates which members can then vote on. May got in because everyone else dropped out before it went to a vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8TBqs2HMFw

Interesting take over the Tommy Robinson saga

Mar 14, 2019 at 7:41 AM | Mark Hodgson

Hansard, the media, history etc will show that May's Deal suffered a "crushing defeat".

"Her" Deal was actually the EU's Deal.

May cannot be pushed out of No 10, only persuaded to go. If persuaded to go, it would be a few weeks before Conservative MPs elect a replacement. Boris is the favourite amongst Conservative Party Members, but they don't get to vote

"‘£1 billion extra a month’: Reported cost of Brexit delay if May’s deal fails"
Mar 14, 2019 at 7:43 AM | Mark Hodgson

The figure does not surprise me, but with all the spin and fake news, I have no idea how accurate it is.

Every delay benefits the EU, whatever the final outcome. The Siege of Britain has started.

Mar 14, 2019 at 7:25 AM | Mark Hodgson
Mar 14, 2019 at 7:55 AM | TinyCO2

Right to Buy has allowed many benefits and developments for those able to buy, their streets, neighbourhoods etc. The biggest problem has stemmed from Councils not being allowed or encouraged to build new council/affordable/social housing for subsequent generations to move into, as they wanted to move from their parental home.

The demand for social housing never dropped, but the supply did.

Councils were left with the housing stock they could not sell, including concrete tower blocks, with the biggest maintenance liabilities. Many Councils had built housing estates with the latest quick and cheap systems, and these got caught in the Defective Premises Act

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defective_Premises_Act_1972
http://defectiveproperties.com/Defective-Property-List.php

Mark,

And you can see why the EU would be emboldened can't you? Why wouldn't they? Our politicians have been falling over themselves to surrender to the EU on everything!

So no wonder the EU is being the EU and making this as difficult as possible because why wouldn't it? Our spineless snivelling mistakes of apologies we call MP's have removed the threat of leaving without a deal from the table so of course the EU will extract as much as it can...plus more...because there are no consequences for the EU.

What a shame the British will just shrug their shoulders and get on with being sheep. What we need is a good old fashioned lyncing to put the fear of god back in to our politicians (kinda like how the frogs aren't afraid of getting out and busting things up).

A billion a month might seem staggering but we send 9 billion net to the EU a year anyway.

I'm with you 100% on how daft right to buy is. I can see how the idea was intended - sell off all social housing and then let the private sector deal with the headache. At the time it was thought of, a falling population and hence a falling demand would see repair costs soar and building values fall. Only I thought at the time - 'the poor are always with us'.Even if there was a drop in population there would always be a steady stream of people who ended up needing housing by the government. I very much doubted that the value of property would fall and it's been obvious for at least 3 decades that demand would continue to be high while we allowed migration on even a moderate scale. So the core mechanism beneath the scheme is broken.

The other idea of the Tories was that greatful home owners would vote for them. Except it wasn't the Tories selling people their homes as most council houses are in Labour areas and after the scheme started we had years of a Labour government. Champagne socialists are quite happy to buy their council flat and still despise the party that thought of it. And subsequently it became seen as a right to be given a cheap council flat that could then be bought at a knock down price. Some bought, sold, profited and then blew the money, only to end up back needing social housing.

But still many Tory MPs think it was a good idea. It demonstrates how out of touch with basic economics they become.