Welcome to the Court of Jesters.
From time to time we will release our very private
Minutes of what is going on with our rivals.
For you must BEWARE the CARNIVAL OF CLOWNS and the
CIRCUS OF FOOLS who everyday distract us with their jolly japes and deceptions.
We shall identify their tricks, buffoonery and
tom-foolery, so DON’T LET YOURSELF BE FOOLED.
They will cheat you of what is rightfully yours as soon
as look at you.
-----------------------------------
As through this world
I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
Woody
Guthrie
----------------------------------
Almost 2 years have passed since our last minutes on the
subject of housing. During that time things have steadily got worse for those
in rented accommodation and those who are homeless. This issue of Jesterminutes
takes a satirical look at what has been happening in housing policy; in particular
it highlights the wide-ranging and detrimental effect, which the Housing and
Planning Bill 2015 will have on the poor, the vulnerable and homeless.
The Housing & Planning Bill 2015
David Cameron, ensconced at the top of Mount Privilege,
proclaimed some time ago that ‘The Long March to equality is not over’. The Tories have signalled the fact that such
a march will not start on their watch. The Housing and Planning Bill shows a
sneering disregard for those who are poor or disadvantaged and puts the
promotion of inequality at the heart of government policy. It is a crude and
cynical piece of socio-economic engineering; under the guise of creating a property-owning
democracy it seeks to widen the gap between the ‘Haves’ and ‘Have Nots’ with the sole purpose (as Nick Clegg recently
attested) of strengthening and
increasing Tory voters in 2020.
So what’s the problem
with this Housing Bill?
Here are just a few:
- Right to Buy
- Pay to stay
- Starter Homes
- Register of Rogue Landlords
- Compulsory Purchase Orders
- Homelessness
But before looking at these in detail, here are a few
numbers to get us thinking:
- There are now 11 million private renters
- 50% of these pay so much rent that they have nothing left over to save for a deposit
- 30% of privately rented homes fail to meet regulatory standards for decent homes
- 740,000 households in private rental sector with category 1 hazards creating threat to life and health
- 100,000 children were homeless in temporary accommodation at Christmas 2015
- £9.3billion - the cost of housing benefit for private rents
- £1.25billion annual grant for social housing saves the Treasury £4.5billion in Housing Benefit
- Since 2012 only 1 in 9 council houses have been replaced
Right to Buy
This will be attractive to people already in Social Housing,
who are able to afford to buy their house at a knock down price but creates
problems for those families on low income for whom social housing was intended
in the first place. Problems are:
- Local Authorities will be forced to sell off low rent ‘High Value’ homes. Money from these sales will not stay in the LA area but will instead flow to central government (contrary to Government’s stated policy of localism) in order to subsidise right to buy. A consequence of this is that resources are transferred away from areas where the housing crisis is most acute. By definition, high value council house exist because they are in areas, where rents and house prices are high and affordable houses are in short supply.
The position is made worse in
areas like Canterbury where housing prices are so high that Housing Association
tenants cannot afford to buy even with a 20% discount.
SHELTER estimates that 113,000
low-rent council homes could be lost over time as a result of this policy.
Pay to Stay
- P2S requires council tenants to pay increased rent if the household income exceeds a threshold to be set at the discretion of the Secretary of State. Indications are that families in ‘social housing’ with a household income of over £30,000 will see their rents increased towards market levels over time.
- By drawing the thresholds too low, P2S will act in tandem with existing caps on housing benefit, which forces tenants to seek housing in low-income areas. Experience in towns like Margate is that this results in increased pressure on local services. These enforced movements of population have already started to:
- Reduce the social mix of wealthier areas
- Destroy deep-rooted communities
- Create ‘ghettos’ of poverty and social deprivation
Starter Homes
- Starter homes will be homes for sale to first-time buyers at 80% of market price up to value £250k.
- Government confirms that this scheme will only be achieved by diverting money from existing affordable housing obligations (Section 106 obligations)
- A new housing development outside Canterbury is offering 1 bedroom flats at £217k. With a 20% reduction this would make the cost to a first-time buyer around £174k. This is well beyond the reach of most single earners under 30. Accommodation for a small family would be well in excess of £220k.
Recent Shelter research suggests
that average Starter Homes will be unaffordable
to families on middle incomes in 58% of the country. A family on the new National Living Wage will not be able
to afford a Starter Home in 98% of the
country
Register of Rogue
Landlords
- This is a reasonable ‘pro-tenant’ idea, which will come to nothing as a result of:
- Piddling maximum penalties
- Funding cuts to LA’s which leave them with no capacity to inspect or investigate complaints
Compulsory
Purchase Orders
- The high price of land is a root cause of successive governments’ failure to build houses. Whilst the Housing Bill seeks to make the process of CPOs more efficient, it does nothing to help LAs purchase Land at low enough prices to build decent homes at affordable prices.
Missed
Opportunities (or things that might really have helped)
The opportunity
- To levy a housing-related tax, which could be used to fund new-build and would slow the rate of rise in house prices
- To Restrain and regulate private sector rents
- To invest in new social housing
- To re-define affordability so that housing is truly affordable; because as it stands increasing supply is irrelevant when prices are beyond the reach of cash-strapped households
- To Compulsorily Purchase of Land at affordable prices
- To cut out the lies and scurrilous statements, which set neighbour against neighbour; as when George Osborne claimed that some families were having their rents subsidised by other working people; the reality is that social rents are set at levels where payment of management, maintenance and renewal costs are met in full by rents charged.
Homelessness
- Homelessness is again on the rise. Capping housing benefit while at the same time doing nothing about the provision of affordable private rents is a toxic combination, which directly results in an increase in homelessness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks are due to
i)
Shelter
ii)
Anne Williams of Open Democracy
For help with facts, figures, issues and ideas.
Alice in Wongaland
The story so far: Alice*, the callow, but
ambitious MP for ‘Somewhere-up-North’ has been chosen to serve in the
Government run by a dunce of an English nobleman, Dave “Hogshead” Cameroon **.
At her first Ministerial Meeting Alice escapes the attention of the Baldy Man
from Work & Pensions by retreating to No.10’s garden. She espies a strange
and worried looking Rabbit; the Rabbit nips smartly through the hedge into the
garden of no.11. Alice decides to follow. She has almost caught up with the
Rabbit when he plunges down a burrow with a sign reading ‘Secret Hole in the
Economy’. Alice enters the Hole and finds herself in freefall. “I must be back
in 2008,” she thinks to herself. Alice stops with an almighty bump and finds
that she has landed in a strange and surreal place called "Wongaland".
This is a record of the many and
wongaful meetings Alice had in that never-never land.
The story so far: Alice*, the callow, but ambitious MP for ‘Somewhere-up-North’ has been chosen to serve in the Government run by a dunce of an English nobleman, Dave “Hogshead” Cameroon **. At her first Ministerial Meeting Alice escapes the attention of the Baldy Man from Work & Pensions by retreating to No.10’s garden. She espies a strange and worried looking Rabbit; the Rabbit nips smartly through the hedge into the garden of no.11. Alice decides to follow. She has almost caught up with the Rabbit when he plunges down a burrow with a sign reading ‘Secret Hole in the Economy’. Alice enters the Hole and finds herself in freefall. “I must be back in 2008,” she thinks to herself. Alice stops with an almighty bump and finds that she has landed in a strange and surreal place called "Wongaland". This is a record of the many and wongaful meetings Alice had in that never-never land.
The story so far: Alice*, the callow, but ambitious MP for ‘Somewhere-up-North’ has been chosen to serve in the Government run by a dunce of an English nobleman, Dave “Hogshead” Cameroon **. At her first Ministerial Meeting Alice escapes the attention of the Baldy Man from Work & Pensions by retreating to No.10’s garden. She espies a strange and worried looking Rabbit; the Rabbit nips smartly through the hedge into the garden of no.11. Alice decides to follow. She has almost caught up with the Rabbit when he plunges down a burrow with a sign reading ‘Secret Hole in the Economy’. Alice enters the Hole and finds herself in freefall. “I must be back in 2008,” she thinks to herself. Alice stops with an almighty bump and finds that she has landed in a strange and surreal place called "Wongaland". This is a record of the many and wongaful meetings Alice had in that never-never land.
A Palin-style Tea
Party
“Whatever happened to the Sub Prime?”
said the Dormouse, waking from a deep sleep.
“He is either dead or hiding in a
Hedgefund,” replied the March Hare
"Hatter, what is the Sub
Prime?" enquired Alice. Hatter seemed always to know about these things
"Ah me!" said the Hatter, sounding
wistful, "The Sub Prime was a wonderful, cheeky little fellow; everybody
loved him...and he blew such beautiful bubbles. He once blew the biggest bubble
that Wongaland has ever seen. I heard tell that, if you caught one of his
magical bubbles, it would in an instant change your little house in Wongaland
into treasure trove - riches beyond dreams."
“That’s not what I heard,” scoffed
the March Hare “I heard that in Wongaland-across-the-Pond his bubbles made
5,000,000 homeless and even more jobless.
The Hatter looked crestfallen at
Hare’s stinging comment
"Cheer up Hatter" said
Alice brightly, "I am sure that the Sub Prime is really still out there
somewhere. I heard Little George whispering to the Blue Queen that he is very
much alive and flourishing. George said that he may even have a son, who is now
ready to come out to play in Wongaland.”
Alice continued
“What I don’t understand is George told
the Queen that debt is bad but housing debt must be encouraged. He talked of
giving loans to people to (as he put it) pile on top of mortgages so that they
can buy new houses, or in your case, Hare, burrows.”
“Of course, a delicious paradox,”
said the Hatter, thinking out loud “Housing Market to stimulate dead Wongaland
market. More bubbles, just like old times…”
Hatter broke off as the White Rabbit
scooted past;
“Can’t stop! Got to get my lucky
rabbit’s foot on the ladder; I’m late; I’m late; I’m late!”
The White Rabbit’s words seemed to
lift the Hatter’s mood instantly. Pouring another cup of tea, he mused
“The Sub Prime has returned. This calls for a speculation!" Don't
you mean a celebration?" corrected Alice. "No, I mean a
speculation...What a funny girl you are," The Hatter said, looking
quizzically at Alice.”
*Ms McVague’s Alice is deliciously enthusiastic, headstrong
and vainglorious.
** Mr Cameroon effortlessly plays the
self-deluding, dull Toff.
Our Real Estate Analyst, Hal Singh-Boome, interviews
Property Tycoon,– Mr
Wright -Tooby
Hal: Mr Wright – Tooby; or may I call you Sir?
Wright-Tooby: That may be a little premature; but I guess
it’s only a question of time.
Hal: I wonder if your Striverfulness would share with your many admirers (which include Little George of Osborne and the Duke of Westminster) how you developed your impressive property portfolio.
Wright-Tooby:
(wistfully) Well, I owe it all to Mrs. T., don’t we all? I started with
nothing, except, of course, my council house. I managed to duck and dive a bit
so that I could buy the place at a knock down price.
Hal: You mean you
waited until the property attracted the maximum
Right-to-Buy discount?
Wright-Tooby: Yeah; as I was saying, I bought it at a knock
down price. It was a nice place, nothing grand 4 bedrooms, large garden,
well-built – houses were built properly in those days. After a while, I managed
to put a bit aside for a second mortgage.
Hal: (prompting) Because you had a lower than
average mortgage on your first property.
Wright-Tooby:
Exactly. My eldest, Penny (Pretty Penny,
Ha! Ha!) was pregnant at the time so I set her up with a Tenancy Agreement in
the new house. She is able to claim maximum rate Housing Benefit, which she
pays me and I put in my back pocket. So now I’m laughing both sides of my face.
Government forks out to ‘subsidize’ my first purchase; Government pays me rent
on my daughters gaff.
Hal: And all
completely legal
Wright-Tooby:
Clever boy! Beautiful isn’t it? After that I’m buying and renting; buying and
renting. They’re not building council houses any more but that’s good for me –
poor people have to live somewhere so they have to go ‘private’; they have to
come to me.
Hal: People might
say you have been exploiting the poor?
Wright-Tooby: Pious nonsense; my conscience is clear. It’s
the Government what doesn’t build the houses; it’s the government’s low wage
economy which means people can’t pay rents without housing benefit. I’m
providing a social service at an affordable rent. I’m just staying true to Mrs. T and letting
the market decide on where to pitch my rents.
Hal: So the
Chancellor’s Right-to Buy 2 offers you new opportunities?
Wright-Tooby: No
my friend. It’s time to cash in my chips. Let the next generation have a go. My
portfolio’s up for sale. Did I mention that council house I bought in 1983 for
£9k, I sold last week for £600k?
Hal: Thank you Lord Wright of Ripoff.
Celebrity
Book at Bedtime –
Ministers prepare the next generation of voters for 5 more glorious years with
the Tories
-
Rupert Bear in “Badger off to where you don’t belong.”
Says
Pudgy Pig
It’s
just not fair
Those
Badgers get
In
everywhere
They
have grand houses
They
pay low rent
Back
to Badgerland
They
should all be sent!
“You
are quite right!”
Pipes
Algy Pug
“Ferdy
Fox says that
I’m
a mug
To
let to Badgers for a song.”
They’ve
overun Nutwood;
Sscrounging
Vermin - It’s just plain wrong.
Lets
make them leave!
I’ll
get a club
Or
p’rahps remove
Their
housing sub.
A
month goes by
-
A sunny day
Rupert
wants Bill Badger
To
come and play.
He
skips around
To
Badger Rise;
Knocks
at Bill’s door;
To
his surprise
Podgy
Pig steps out
“
Badgers have all gone away”
Says
an evasive Podgy.
To
worried Rupert
It
sounds quite dodgy.
“I
mean,” says Pig
“We’ve
had a cull.
All
Badgers in Nutwood
Have
been dispatched to Hull.
Badger
Cleansing is
For
the Publlic’s good –
Now
rents can rise throughout Nutwood!”
