DJKillaQueen

Ooh you are way off historically? Who made cheap money available? Who deregulated the markets (I think you'll find it was a Conservative government in this country)? Labour just continued what Thatcher started - only they didn't starve public services and the poor like Thatcher did. Historically busts only happen in certain conditions....like those that led up to the 1930's Wall Street crash. People get greedy and take bigger risks thinking they are cleverer than the system. The reaction by the governments of the time was to introduce regulation to prevent the same happening again (that's where banking regualtion was born). It worked perfectly well for 50 years until we started deregulating those regulations. Result? Three crashes in three decades. I think that says a lot. And yes Brown was as blinkered as Thatcher before him and as Cameron will be after. Until governments start laying blame where it really lies (and compromising the greed of their rich friends) we have no hope of restoring long term sustainable stability. And yes we can blame the banks - because they designed the risky products...we can blame both Labour and Conservative governemnts because they allowed them to do it. We can blame the greed of those at the top who put maximised profit before sane economics. And yet it's those who benefitted not one jot from any of it that will pay the most.

I think the message is clear. There are obviously bike thieves in the area. If you don't have a high quality D-Lock then get one. Chains, padlocks and cheaper D-Locks that use a tube key are no good. A decent D-Lock may cost ?70-?100 but that's better than losing the bicycle. And make sure it's locked to a secure fitting/ post etc. I recommend the Squire UBX or Trelock Titan - other posters have recommended equally unbreakable locks elsewhere on the forum.

Public spending was not the cause of the financial crash.....that singularly belongs to the banks and housing markets.

Even the nice blocks in places like Greenwich, built as affordable housing for keyworkers. Do you really think that they are full of keyworkers? A lot of them are full of people that have played the system, and are taking the p!ss. You are making an assumption based on what? To get a keyworker property, you have to be just that....nurse, fireman, teacher etc. You can't fiddle that. The problem is that keyworkers can buy property at way below market value and then make ?100k clear profit on resale in as little as three years. So there's an issue there as well. Of course the idea behind it is to not price key workers out of living in the capital - and therefore causing a shortage of keyworkers, but at the same time we are giving them a golden handhsake because of the lower paid job they do. Given the other perks of public sector workers in terms of pensions and so on I think they already do far better than their private sector equivalents who have to continue in low paid misery, unable to ever own a property and without any kind of pension either. Again all of this points to complete unwillingness to tackle the REAL problem....that being the gap between salaries and rents. It's as though we do everything we can to keep the housing market as it is (even if that means practically giving away property to key workers and council tenants) instead of starting to tackle the core issue.

Ty Gina and you are exactly the type of person that suffers most form the current state of housing in this country - and there are millions of people like you. I don't know why some local authorities (including Suouthwark) don't exercise the legal right they already have to forcebly rehome suceeded tenants in properties too big for them. That could be looked at by government. Succession itself is not unfair imo for the reasons I pointed out above. It always involves bereavement and most often protects people who have lived there for a decade or more, either as a partner or spouse or offspring. The alternative would be to make those people effectively homeless and the law does not allow that, except in cases of rent arrears and/or anti-social behaviour. On the overcrowding issue. I've long called for a change in how we measure overcrowding. Local authorities can only measure it according to the law, but that law has not been ammended in more than 100 years. The reason why the council did not consider you to be overcrowded in your 2 bed family home is because by law, 2 adults can sleep in the sitting room, and the child can sleep in the kitchen or bathroom (yes the archaic laws say that). They also have the smallest living space measurements in Europe as they were written at a time when families regularly lived in one room and were devised to address that - not to deal with the situation we have today where a family of five, where the children are under 11 can live in a one bedroom flat and that is NOT considered as overcrowding. It's ridiculous. So why hasn't any government tackled that or wanted to tackle that? After all, the Housing Act was ammended and updated in 1985/ 1987/ and 1989....but no mention of overcrowding. I guess it's becuase it would suddenly make so many people eligible for rehousing under the law that instead of finding a solution, successive governments (BOTH Labour and Conservative) prefer to do nothing whilst other factors in the Housing Market have made the situation increasingly worse. On the toilet issue...that is the local authorities own guidelines but not enforcable in law....the Hosuing Act does make provision for what is deemed 'unfit' but it does not stipulate anything on overcrowding. The next thing that has been detrimental has been the right-to-buy scheme. As a result there is a dire lack of 'houses' as opposed to flats accross all social housing stock - that also is a contributary factor in overcrowding. Southwark Homesearch recently had a council house on offer for tenants to bid for. It had over 56 bidders - and those are just existing council tenants looking to move into a bigger property. The stresses on the system are there for all to see. You also make the very real point about rents in the private sector (by far the biggest reason why young families like yourselves are forced to live with parents). This is the area that something desperately needs to happen in. At present, housing benefit will only pay up to a maximum limit linked to the average rent for your area (so all those who think Cameron's idea to cap HB is something new is wrong as it already is capped). There are around 15 million people like you Gina, and 8 million of them are working and need HB to pay part their rent. The HB bill to the country and tax payer is twice what it was 30 years ago...and will double again over the next 20 years if something is not done to curb the inflated growth of the Housing market. Experts predict annual grow on houses prices of 5% every year for the next for years (and that's in a climate of increasing unemployement and recession). It is way above infaltion and expected salary rises. Any economist can tell you that is insane. Essentially tax payers money is making up the shortfall in salaries and private sector rental growth. Not only is that immoral but where will it stop? We currently spend ?20.8 billion on HB every year - that's money going into the pockets of landlords, many of them private, so that they can continue to reap the rewards of bouyant property investment. And you are right...the stress to you and your family is unfair. If you and/or your partner work, the stress doesn't go because you are just as poor and will continue to need top up benefits to live. You are not alone. One third of those in work are in the same situation as you. There is a gross imbalance in our economy. The greed of those at the top has caused these widening gaps, only they are not gaps anymore because so many people are now suffering in the middle too. Indeed many homeowners feel squeezed too as they have higher than ever proportions of their salaries invested in their homes. And it's an unprecedented level of debt. The solutions need to be long term and need to start now. We've got to get a grip on banks, mortgage lenders and the housing market. It is possible to limit annual growth of house prices to 1 or 2% through regulation and a change of attitude to the housing market, which makes it perform more like other sectors, under natural market forces. The buy-to-let schemes need to be restricted (I think the FSA are going to move on that by outlawing interest only mortgages, favoured by buy-to-let investors, but it won't be enough - as they'll simply increase rents to cover the capital repayments). We need to scrap part/ buy part rent schemes as well and all of these schemes mortgage lenders come up with to keep people buying (rather than letting a natural shortage of buyers cause house prices to slow or dip even). If you can't afford to buy a house you can't afford to buy it...offering the part buy of a house is simply a rouse to keep property profits high - whilst increasing numbers of people become out priced. It can not go on indefinitely. And we also need to regulate private sector rents (as indeed happens very successfully in other europoean countries). Buy-to-let investors need to start having some capital investment in their property. At the moment it is a free way to get tenants to buy you a house. I would favour some regulation that requires a minumum capital investment by the investor on the property. Property owners won't like it but they need to start understanding the detrimental impact of such unregulated growth on the rest of us and the economy. We can not continue to fund their profits in part with ever increasing levels of HB and essentially tax payers money, when wages and other sectors lag so far behind.

I agree 'just in case' is not a strong argument...... I personally take a long term view and think that we need to follow the example of some continental countries where rents are regulated in both the private and public sector...with an aim to close the gap over say the next two decades. So that would mean slwoing the inflation of the housing market while salaries and council rents catch up. The problem is that sucessive governments don't think that far in advance. In the short term we need more social housing and perhaps some kind of legislation that forces empty and disused properties or buildings to be put into use whereby maybe a local authority could compulsary lease a property at a set rate. Controversial I know and there would need to be get out clauses for owners, but there are many foreign owned buildings for example that sit empty for years.

lol....dang, my spelling is slipping...... I don't think plenty of people are getting what they voted for....and plenty does not equal majority. Effectively it is a minority government propped up by the party that least people (of the three main parties) voted for. At the moment most of it is ideas anyway and has yet to pass through parliamentary debate and where a change in law is required is a long way from getting there, if indeed it does. In a years time when we start to see the impact of cuts on employment and public services the mood will be different. And if nothing is done to regulate banking (bonuses and profits are already almost back to previous levels) the anger really will begin to set in. It amazes me that the two things that are responsible for the mess we are in - the housing market and banking - still continue to be protected from any kind of meaningful regulation (although the FSA have mooted proposals on curbing mortgage lending).

There are 1.8 million people on waiting lists. Wouldn't a better solution be to stop the sale of council homes? We have after all lost 8 million of them through the right to buy scheme over the last 25 years (and most of them were sold under market value). On the MP example....most council tenants who work (because 60% nationally of them don't according to stats) don't earn more than ?7 an hour. It wouldn't actually free up that many homes anyway and would only apply to new tenancies. Plus most tenants would be more likely to exercise their right to buy before being turfed out so it isn't workable whilst the right to buy scheme still exists anyway. Waiting lists are also regional - so in some parts of the country there are short if no waiting lists. And when you add the legal costs of evicting people it doesn't make financial sense either. If you were a council tenant, working or not, wouldn't you be inclined to not take a job that risked you losing you home? So it would have the impact of stopping upward mobility. I just think you can not justify eviciting people based on salary. Because it really is a home where they may have lived at for decades...they have friends there and belong to a local community....maybe they are involved in a Residents Association and so on. The impact and upheaval isn't just about forcing them to move - it has deeper implications. Jobs don't last forever. That MP for example could lose his/ her seat next time round and be unemployed again. Social housing exists to prevent homelessness - turfing people out effectively makes them homeless again and for that reason I doubt Camweron will ever succeed in changing the law (which he would have to do) to make it happen. I don't know why this MP prefers to stay in his council home...but in my experience most council tenants aspire to be home owners too and if they are ever lucky enough to get on that ladder they usually leave council accomodation. On the sucession of tenancy front...take the example of one chap I know. He lived with his mother as her full-time carer until her sudden death one day. He had no job and and had effectively given up his life to care for her (and saved the NHS and tax payer thousands every year by doing so). Under the current rules he was allowed to succeed the tenancy. 8 months later he has had a breakdown and is under treatment for depression (the impact on him of his mother's death). Are you really sure that he should have been turfed out of what had been his home too for at least six years? (he was rehomed into a single bedroom flat).

LOL....you forget how big a batch of fudge really is.....I defy anyone to get through 20 bags worth in a week. *get's out shotgun - decides to make gannet pie for the picnic*

Feak no...are you some kind of gannet?

Already have a batch in the fridge...!

No Mitch, no party recieved a majority of the vote. Did tory voters vote for a coalition? Did lib Dem voters vote for a coalition? Was there a referendum on it? No there wasn't..... And in fact the party that came THIRD....got power with no democratic right to govern in any form.....if anything the coalition should have been Labour/ Tory...if you truly believe in democracy that is.

You have a basket? I just have a 'poundland' cool bag (and they have more in stock btw folks) :)

That's because most people DIDN'T vote for the government.....whihc makes it....errrrr..... rule of the masses by minority......so democratic.

Is this still happening? My diary says so :)

Yeah but it is unfair because it requires that to own a car you must own land too if you need to store it. So the rich can keep their cars SORNED and those on the breadline can go do themselves. As long as the car isn't driven what harm is it doing to be parked outside someone's home?

It isn't funny if it's YOU being turfed out of your home and for what? Having a below average income deemed too high for social housing. So I stand by my point....if we are to link salary to payable rent then it should apply for EVERYONE (private or public)....after all that would only be fair.

:))

Are they selling off the DVDs as well?

I tend to think that surely it would be possible to farm enough fish whilst the oceans recover. The Japanese though have a diet extremely high in fish - but I can't understand why whale or dolphin are so neceassry as part of that diet given all the varieties of fish out there. One point the documentary did make was that the biggest lure of dolphin fishing is for the provision of dolphins to sea life centres...so that seems to be the main reason for fishing them.....killing the rest for food is just a sideline. So next time anyone goes to see a dolphin show - think about how many dolpins ended up as food so that you could watch that one dolphin do tricks.....it's thousands.

He's right about the unfairness but on the surface it looks as though he's proposing union disruption and good old fashoined general strike mentality to I guess force the coalition to capitulate. In reality that won't achieve anything that helps the economy and the poorest within it (who depend on public services)......as we've seen before.

Keef...the property is only allowed to be passed down once (upon death) so after that it can't be suceeded. I would go further and say that if eligibility to remain in a council home is to be linked to salary - then the same should be true for the private sector. So if you rent a house with a salary of say 37K (with a rent you can afford) in the private sector...and then suddenly get a Job that pays ?60k...you also should be forced to move to somewhere with a higher rent...... That's efffectively what we are talking about here.......linking the rent people are allowed to pay to what they earn. If anyone really things it is unfair for some to have proportionally cheap rents they they must agree it is unfair for ANYONE to have a rent that is below a certain percentage of their income (be that in the public or private sector). Council rents rise every year, usually at around the 3% level (although Lambeth were allowed to raise theirs by 11% recently for various reasons). The rise is regulated by law. So the growth in rents over the last twenty years is what a sane housing market would expect. Similarly, twenty years ago the role of council housing was different. It provided secure accomodation to tenants who were eligible under a variety of criteria. And many council tenants saw their homes as temporary until they could afford to buy somewhere. The real issue here is that private sectors rents have ballooned in a growth scale that is just ridiuclously steep, and have no relationship to wages or other market factors (apart from the artificial inflation of the housing market)......it's a bubble. As a result social housing has become the ONLY option for many people to EVER have any type of SECURE accomodation. It's an important point to make.

Did you say hermaphrodite gypsies Rosie? Get me some cloned cow now......! :-S

Very good article and underlines what I have been argiung that there are fundamental flaws in our economies that need to be addressed. We need to put stability before inflated growth. Post that link on the social housing thread too LM because the point made about the middle-classes and borrowing is an important one. We don't talk about the middle classes very much but they more than anyone have been shafted by ridiculous house prices and are the one's who really pay the most when it all goes wrong.

In reply to LM... It has almost halved the council stock in the last 30 years......