Current Affairs The Labour Party

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Got to be honest here, I don't feel too much sympathy for the 'poor' middle classes too terrified to send their kids to a state school.

I know a few, proper entitled biffs. The sorts to moralise about benefits seekers making poor choices, yet not seeing the irony of trying to live beyond their means.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Nonsense. Half the country is constantly berating public sector pay and pensions as unacceptable.

Just sounds like you’re in that half, so have at it.

Just as half the country seems to think any private sector landlord is Dickensian, and you appear to be in that half.

 

[Rita_Poon]

It appears the crux is that the system is broken, because it has been written to be. You can have everything you are prepared to pay for, and none of what you can't. Successive governments have allowed mendacious exploitative tax evasion schemes available to the google's and amazon's of the world, and then have the audacity to cry poverty when the money isn't there. "But but but jobs though" they deflect.
The cost of doing business here should be paying tax here, and not just some poxy 'contribution'.

Arguing about what spending is prioritised, what constitutes value, efficiency cuts - it's all academic, there's no money to spend. Fujitsu have it all fitting up the post masters, sunak's father in law has that tech contract for alerting the country via 'emergency txt', spitehawk* accountants that spotted the covid bounceback scheme took the countries credit card to the cleaners and then folded the bogus companies that'd never traded a day when the cash came through, HS2 has been mentioned, what is it? 5 times the original outlay for 50% of the original plan? Will anyone go to prison? hahahahaaha

(Tangent) I watched a documentary about the bay city rollers a few years ago, and the singer explained how he'd been worked over by his manager and the record company, he summed up that ~ "when they screw you over, they also cripple you afterwards, to make sure you can't come back at them".

That's what's happened in the UK, and the general public have not only lapped it up but also been complicit in doing (self) harm with the ludicrous brexit shambles.

The people were pished off, so voted somehow to make things successively worse. And now want to bitch about it.

The various messes have come home to roost and no one wants to face it, middle class strivers, landed gentry farmers, more children than ever beneath the poverty line (what's a kingdom like the uk doing with a poverty line ffs), nhs wait lists exceeding some peoples lives, and a media maelstrom playing every side off against every other. Bloody foreigners, bloody benefits, bloody tax exiles, bloody disabled, bloody young, bloody old, bloody rich, bloody poor...

It's a bloody mess, and history teaches it'll only get bloodier. Feck this country, and feck the tory slime almost single handedly responsible for it all.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Got to be honest here, I don't feel too much sympathy for the 'poor' middle classes too terrified to send their kids to a state school.

I know a few, proper entitled biffs. The sorts to moralise about benefits seekers making poor choices, yet not seeing the irony of trying to live beyond their means.

Even that's unnecessarily dramatic, and dare I say it polemic. Another friend had one son go to the private school she taught at, while the other went to a state school. Which one was she supposed to be afraid for again?

As for the sympathy, I don't suppose they're asking for it (the ones I know anyway), but equally, should you also be surprised if those people don't want to vote Labour?

 

[Amw79]

Just as half the country seems to think any private sector landlord is Dickensian, and you appear to be in that half.

Not quite. I just tend to worry more about the generation unable to afford to buy homes, rather than those with property portfolios.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Even that's unnecessarily dramatic, and dare I say it polemic. Another friend had one son go to the private school she taught at, while the other went to a state school. Which one was she supposed to be afraid for again?

As for the sympathy, I don't suppose they're asking for it (the ones I know anyway), but equally, should you also be surprised if those people don't want to vote Labour?

Defo the one at private school. Guessing they were afraid they'd not do as well academically. It's not exactly a secret the middle classes insulate against failure by sending their dimmest and worst to private schools. We even had some running the country!

Now, that's a bit tongue in cheek, but bit certainly happens. There's even academic research that demonstrates it. They'll just be a bit more circumspect in language than I.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Here, @davek, you seem a well educated sort. Did you go to private school? I bet you did.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Not quite. I just tend to worry more about the generation unable to afford to buy homes, rather than those with property portfolios.

So what has Labour done to ease planning restrictions and get more houses built?

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www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk

As John Prescott himself said "In the past 30 years, we have seen unprecedented economic growth, rising incomes, smaller households, and people living longer. We have seen an increasing demand for housing, but overall, we are building 150,000 fewer homes today than we were 30 years ago. It is no wonder that house prices are rocketing, and no wonder that many people cannot afford to live where they were born….”

That's what we should be focusing on rather than blaming this situation on landlords.

 

[efcste97]

Not quite. I just tend to worry more about the generation unable to afford to buy homes, rather than those with property portfolios.

Forget about this generation struggling to afford a place on the property ladder. We need to consider the challenges faced by landlords, who are often unfairly labelled as 'Dickensian'. Next, you'll be calling them 'scum'!"

 

[tsubaki]

So what has Labour done to ease planning restrictions and get more houses built?

Loading…

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk

As John Prescott himself said "In the past 30 years, we have seen unprecedented economic growth, rising incomes, smaller households, and people living longer. We have seen an increasing demand for housing, but overall, we are building 150,000 fewer homes today than we were 30 years ago. It is no wonder that house prices are rocketing, and no wonder that many people cannot afford to live where they were born….”

That's what we should be focusing on rather than blaming this situation on landlords.

It is landlords and those who have made property ownership a career that are the block here, though. Successive governments have identified this as a problem, a big problem in many cases, and yet they've been lobbied out of doing something about it by those who think they would lose out.

Labour really need to do two things - build the homes, and keep them as state assets. Do that and they'll effectively solve this problem.

 

[Amw79]

So what has Labour done to ease planning restrictions and get more houses built?

Loading…

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk

As John Prescott himself said "In the past 30 years, we have seen unprecedented economic growth, rising incomes, smaller households, and people living longer. We have seen an increasing demand for housing, but overall, we are building 150,000 fewer homes today than we were 30 years ago. It is no wonder that house prices are rocketing, and no wonder that many people cannot afford to live where they were born….”

That's what we should be focusing on rather than blaming this situation on landlords.

Well, I’m not defending Labour.

But pretty sure they’ve set a target of building 1.5m new homes in this parliament.

In 2023, c150k new homes were built. In 2022 it was 178k. So 1.5m is an ambitious target, and would be a laudable achievement.

So, they can be judged on that at the end of the parliament.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It is landlords and those who have made property ownership a career that are the block here, though. Successive governments have identified this as a problem, a big problem in many cases, and yet they've been lobbied out of doing something about it by those who think they would lose out.

Labour really need to do two things - build the homes, and keep them as state assets. Do that and they'll effectively solve this problem.

So making the state the landlord is the way to help people get onto the housing ladder?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Well, I’m not defending Labour.

But pretty sure they’ve set a target of building 1.5m new homes in this parliament.

In 2023, c150k new homes were built. In 2022 it was 178k. So 1.5m is an ambitious target, and would be a laudable achievement.

So, they can be judged on that at the end of the parliament.

Indeed. It will be interesting to see what progress they've made. As the report I linked highlights, most governments have made lofty pledges, and all have largely failed to get anywhere close to them.

 

[Amw79]

Indeed. It will be interesting to see what progress they've made. As the report I linked highlights, most governments have made lofty pledges, and all have largely failed to get anywhere close to them.

Sure, but it’s way too early to judge.

I’ve got 3 or 4 things I’ll judge this government on, over the course of a parliament, and the home building is certainly one of them.

 

[Xizor]

The various messes have come home to roost and no one wants to face it

Seems to be the crux of things, certainly. There have been enough articles and pundits claiming that we're facing a major decline in living standards, that the young generations now are the first to have 'less' than their forebears, all of that stuff that's easy to understand in the abstract but perhaps not as easy for anyone to visualise the specifics of how they themselves will be affected.

But we're seeing those effects right now, in real time, and the reactions to them. Farmers losing an inheritance tax benefit? WASPI women independently judged to be due a a handout they won't receive? Wealthy pensioners losing their bonus fuel handout? The aspirational middle classes struggling to send their kids to private school, or invest in property for additional passive income? Some of those causes are worthier than I others I grant you, but the result of all of them is at best a Telegraph hit piece complaining about Labour tax raids and at worst lines of tractors (Chelsea or otherwise) blocking London's streets as all these hard workers give themselves a day off.

There's a snobbish attitude permeating a certain type of Brit that all these long-forewarned collapses in living standards should only apply to other people, perhaps those households that are that are already poor and having to make use of food banks inbetween juggling multiple jobs and the (state) school run. What's a little extra poverty heaped on those already resigned to it, in order to keep the perks flowing elsewhere?