MitchK

In an ideal world, 5 and 8 year old kids would be able to cycle to school. But this is South London. It hardly constitutes neglect or child abuse in my view, but I think the parents are guilty of wishful thinking and ignoring the potential dangers. The publicity that this has received presumably means that every bike and mobile phone thief will now be on the look out for them so Mrs Schonrock will doubtless have to fire up the Volvo in the future.

It's laughable that you are spending time discussing the breed of dog in this when it is clearly down to the breeding of the owner, or lack of it.

Good news, if true. Another step closer to being a bit more than 'just the posh part of Peckham'. Now, where did I put my deck shoes?

elephants at st james's (or was it green park?), get there on the train to london bridge and then change to another train to charing cross, so all overground and train rides are great fun for little ones too

So the nominations are in for the Labour leadership contest. I'm delighted to see that Diane Abbott has made it this far. I believe she is in favour of tax breaks for those parents who send their kids to private schools, since she does this herself. It is very generous of parents who do this as it means less pressure on places at comprehensive schools.

If you want someone to blame, blame Sarah Beeny and all those ghastly property shows.

I'm listening but I do not have the power to do anything about it. Write to the Housing Minister, Grant Shapps. A far more productive 20 minutes than posting your well-considered arguments on here. From what I know, he is well aware of the problem that first time buyers face.

Can't be bothered with a slanging match between two people who don't know each other. But to neutralise your bile a little, let me tell you that my wife is foreign and an immigrant so clearly I am not what you think. No, but I do think you have to look at the London market and see the massive amount of overseas investment in it. Personally, it does not worry me as I can afford my own house no problem. But a lot of people cannot and you have to ask why that is. Clearly there are many reasons for that, but one of them is the growth of the population, especially in the south east. Has that all come from the English having more kids? No. And nor does it bother me much. But if you encourage immigration, you must do so responsibily which means building more homes and expanding public services. Otherwise prices and waiting lists go up. I know three couples who have moved to Dulwich in the last year or so. Not one is English. Again, I am not criticising it - we encouraged them to do so as they are friends. Better them than some of the riff raff round here. But this pushes prices up, which is what this debate is about. The Australians have a very buoyant property market, which rocketed once they reduced restrictions of foreign investment. Even the governor of the central bank was worrying about this and they reimposed the restrictions recently. This does not make Australians racist or xenophobic or anything. Huguenot, I expect you have a poster of Harriet Harman in your loo.

My family love me and I was joking about immigration. That will make zero difference, being non-EU only. It shouldn't be a party political issue I guess but the only people with the power to address it are politicians. And Labour didn't. Go on, say it: I love the Tories.

My suggestion to you guys would be you spend less time pointlessly debating on this forum and more time trying to save up a deposit on a house! Incidentally, they were talking on LBC this morning about the 40% capital gains tax on second homes and how that will hurt the buy to let market. Should be welcome news for you lefties! You see, 13 years of a Labour government and the situation only got worse. The Tories have only been in power for a few weeks and already your worries are being addressed. Add a cap on immigration to that and they'll soon be giving houses away.

It's been going on since the dawn of time. Do you really expect that the government will declare that people are only allowed to own one home?

I think the 'interventionists' amongst you do make some good points but I think you are whistling in the wind. Labour has had its time in government and did nothing about it. The Tories and Liberals certainly won't. You have to accept that plenty of people can afford their own homes, otherwise prices wouldn't be as high as they are. It is not all being driven by buy to let. You also have to accept that you live in one of the most overcrowded regions in Europe with amongst the highest house prices. And you can't expect the government to keep coming to the rescue of people who want to have three bedrooms and a garden.

Well I agree that this country and this city in particular are becoming intolerable. But we might differ on our reasons for thinking that. Well the average household income is 30k I believe. So if you bring in over double this and have savings, surely you could afford a decent flat in e.g. Beckenham or something. Or are you hoping for something more palatial?

Sounds like BECTA was pretty worthless then but just less worthless than some of the other national bodies. I am amazed you read the Guardian, Ladymuck! I bet your heroes are Shami Chakrabati and George Monbiot. Am I right?

I recognise that I cannot fully appreciate what it is like to be on a waiting list for a home etc and do think that landlords are overly powerful in this country and some balance needs to be restored in favour of tenants. Renting is a rather uncertain business and children need stability. I am lucky enough to own a house but I have friends who cannot get on the property ladder in London due to the expense, so they end up renting. But part of this is their determination to remain in an upmarket area of London (better than Dulwich) rather than accept that their incomes will never be enough to buy a sizeable property in that area. In my view, they should bite the bullet and move out of London and commute or move to a less desirable area. That's not always possible of course and more affordable housing needs to be built, but in central London there really isn't much room to do this. The house price to income ratio has gone up but this is partly due to interest costs being considerably lower nowadays. I am not sure a lot of people would cope very well if interest rates go up to 10%. But do not expect that a person earning the average UK wage will be able to easily buy a nice 3 bed house in East Dulwich.

If you really want to help the poor in society, reintroduce grammar schools and increase discipline. There is too much 'let's all go at the pace of the slowest person'.

What an absurd over-reaction. It's just another pointless Quango. Shutting it down doesn't mean they're sacking teachers or closing schools.

Well you could ban foreign ownership of properties if you want. That would probably wipe off 30% on London prices at a stroke. If you have an uncontrolled immigration policy, and Labour did, then there will be excess demand for property. You lefties didn't want to discuss or control immigration, you don't want to build on green sites because of the damage to the environment and then complain that property prices go up. So you blame the rich and say is their fault. Houses in East Dulwich are not expensive in my view. Far from it, if you compare to other parts of London.

If someone wants control over their life, they shouldn't rent. And if they can't afford to buy where they live, they should move.

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > We need to do that here and fast otherwise like I > said before, within 30 years there'll be no-one > left who can afford to buy or rent. Er, if that were the case, property prices would come down. The law of supply and demand.

Please vote for Abbott as Socialist leader, that would be brilliant. Classic left wing hypocrite, criticising inequality and the rich but getting her son into City of London boys school. Just like Blair and Harman.

Melanie Phillips is dreadful but she is a Daily Mail columnist and probably reflects some of the opinions of her readers. I thought the New Statesman chappie was extremely disrespectful to Lord Heseltine and generally rather odious. But it was good of Lord Falconer to point out how similar all the leading lights of the government are. This is the ex-barrister, Oxbridge-educated, kids at Westminster school (Clegg's alma mater) Lord Falconer that we are talking about, right? To get to the top in politics you need intelligence and ambition, as well as good contacts I would think. Anyone who is super intelligent and ambitious at 16 will probably end up at Oxbridge. There are plenty of candidates, including the Tory one in Dulwich, who come from different backgrounds but you lot chose not to vote her in.

Alan Johnson was a postman for a while, although he did briefly attend Sloane Grammar School in Chelsea so not a complete oik. John Prescott was a steward and a waiter in the Merchant Navy. That was why Nicholas Soames used to taunt him in the Commons by saying 'Mine's a gin and tonic, Giovanni'.

I don't think you can label Cameron, Osborne and Clegg middle-class. Upper-middle I would say. Osborne is practically a member of the aristocracy. Much better than having the ex-postmen and ship stewards that the Labour party serve up.

We need more thickos in Parliament. There are too many intelligent Oxbridge lawyers in there who can string sentences together and understand complex issues such as the economy. Clegg went to Westminster, Cameron to Eton. Good - they clearly got a brilliant education which will help them in government. Cream always rises to the top.