Peter Mandelson has a new name in our household: Postman Prat.
The justification for selling off 30% of Royal Mail is apprently that (coincidentally, surprise, surprise) the Pension Fund is in a parlous state and could well result in the whole business folding.
Who values the Pension Fund? - the City, based on the state of the economy. So it's bound to be looking a bit peeky at the moment, same as anyone else. It will come back, when shares come back.
Why are we looking at it today, then? Well, it just so happens that Mandelson is trying to force through the part-privatisation of Royal Mail, despite the fact that the Government seems hell-bent on nationalising everything else!
The rationale for the privatisation is a wonderfully circular argument. Royal Mail is in a mess, financially, and its pension fund has a huge deficit.
Who is responsible for it being in a mess financially? - governments of successive hues, who have starved it of investment for years, then saddled it with the half-assed cockanamie version of "competition" it currently labours under.
Who is responsible for the Pension Fund being in a mess? - Gordon Brown, who raided it for government revenue to spend on eye-catching New Labour initiatives.
Now, under the principles of "benign neglect", (see previous post) it's been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that apparently only drastic action can save it. Though if you valued the pension fund in another way, on a different day, the result might be different, too.
Mandelson's version of drastic action is selling off 30% of it to TNT (presumably there wasn't a passing Russian gas oligarch available at the time). Why in Christ's name TNT should be able to bring any more expertise than already exists, I don't know. Nor can anyone tell me.
Right. Listen Mandelson. Why should I sit here and take you privatising the Royal Mail, which should be owned and operated for the benefit of us all, especially when you are nationalising banks left right and centre? If my hard earned taxpayers' money is good enough to prop up the Roual Bank of Scotland, it's good enough to ensure we have an affordable, reliable, universal delivery obligation. Otherwise known as the Royal Mail.
Re-nationalise the Post Office. Restore the monopoly. And tell TNT to go jump in the canal.
Tuesday 24 February 2009
Give this man a George Cross
We don't really have an official Bolshy Party Policy on medals and awards and stuff like that but I think we might have to start one after I read this account on the BBC News web site:
"Three teenagers have pleaded guilty to killing an Indian sailor in a "racially motivated" attack after he arrived on a ship near Southampton.
Gregory Fernandes, 32, of Goa, had been out for a drink in Fawley in October 2007 when he was attacked by youths.
Stephen Pritchard, of Dibden, Daniel Rogers, of Fawley, both 18, and Chay Fields, 16, of Blackfield, admitted manslaughter at Winchester Crown Court.
They also pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on another sailor.
Two 15-year-old boys from Fawley, who cannot be identified, also admitted causing grievous bodily harm to, and assaulting, Mr Fernandes' shipmate Vinod Pitchilnaviram, 29.
Pritchard, of Cathay Gardens, Rogers, of Falcon Fields, and Fields, of Priest Croft Drive, will be sentenced at a later date.
Mr Fernandes died from heart failure after being attacked. Mr Fernandes and Mr Pitchilnaviram had soft drinks at the hotel on the evening of 20 October 2007.
They were returning to the cargo ship The Garonne, berthed at Fawley oil refinery, when they were attacked by a group of about 20 teenagers, first outside the hotel and then further down the road.
He was having a drink and then a takeaway and there were lots of youths hanging around who had been drinking. Some part of that group chased him and his friend up the road and set upon him.
A member of the public, Jody Miles, intervened and rescued Mr Fernandes, put him in his car and drove him to Fawley refinery. He then went back to help Mr Vinod.
But within seconds of being dropped off at the front gate, Mr Fernandes dropped down dead from heart failure brought on by the attack.
There was evidence that some of [the defendants], prior to setting eyes on Mr Fernandes, were saying they wanted to beat up a 'Paki' - that was the sort of language being used."
Jody Miles, who I understand is also an RNLI volunteer, should be awarded the George Cross. Forthwith. No messing.
It's such a shame that we're not allowed to encase the defendants in concrete and drop them in the Solent.
"Three teenagers have pleaded guilty to killing an Indian sailor in a "racially motivated" attack after he arrived on a ship near Southampton.
Gregory Fernandes, 32, of Goa, had been out for a drink in Fawley in October 2007 when he was attacked by youths.
Stephen Pritchard, of Dibden, Daniel Rogers, of Fawley, both 18, and Chay Fields, 16, of Blackfield, admitted manslaughter at Winchester Crown Court.
They also pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on another sailor.
Two 15-year-old boys from Fawley, who cannot be identified, also admitted causing grievous bodily harm to, and assaulting, Mr Fernandes' shipmate Vinod Pitchilnaviram, 29.
Pritchard, of Cathay Gardens, Rogers, of Falcon Fields, and Fields, of Priest Croft Drive, will be sentenced at a later date.
Mr Fernandes died from heart failure after being attacked. Mr Fernandes and Mr Pitchilnaviram had soft drinks at the hotel on the evening of 20 October 2007.
They were returning to the cargo ship The Garonne, berthed at Fawley oil refinery, when they were attacked by a group of about 20 teenagers, first outside the hotel and then further down the road.
He was having a drink and then a takeaway and there were lots of youths hanging around who had been drinking. Some part of that group chased him and his friend up the road and set upon him.
A member of the public, Jody Miles, intervened and rescued Mr Fernandes, put him in his car and drove him to Fawley refinery. He then went back to help Mr Vinod.
But within seconds of being dropped off at the front gate, Mr Fernandes dropped down dead from heart failure brought on by the attack.
There was evidence that some of [the defendants], prior to setting eyes on Mr Fernandes, were saying they wanted to beat up a 'Paki' - that was the sort of language being used."
Jody Miles, who I understand is also an RNLI volunteer, should be awarded the George Cross. Forthwith. No messing.
It's such a shame that we're not allowed to encase the defendants in concrete and drop them in the Solent.
Slug a Hoodie
Forgive me for pointing out once again the "Bleeding Obvious" in terms of glaring contradictions in would-be policy for our would-be Prime Minister, but I have just noticed this:
"DAVID CAMERON today warned young people that a Conservative government would impose curfews on yobs, axe cautions and lock up drunks.
Unveiling new moves to tackle crime, the Tory leader said children and adults would have to understand that under his premiership "you're not going to get away with it any more".
"If we win the next election, I want a loud and clear message to be heard by every kid who's getting into trouble and every kid who's thinking about it: It's the Conservatives you're dealing with now," Mr Cameron said. His remarks came as shadow home secretary Chris Grayling set out plans to reverse Labour's binge-drinking crisis, put more police on the streets and target gang ring-leaders.
In his first major speech since taking over his post, Mr Grayling said he would be "unashamedly tough" with youth crime."
So much for "hug a hoodie!"
Can a bandwagon actually DO a U-turn without crashing? I think not.
"DAVID CAMERON today warned young people that a Conservative government would impose curfews on yobs, axe cautions and lock up drunks.
Unveiling new moves to tackle crime, the Tory leader said children and adults would have to understand that under his premiership "you're not going to get away with it any more".
"If we win the next election, I want a loud and clear message to be heard by every kid who's getting into trouble and every kid who's thinking about it: It's the Conservatives you're dealing with now," Mr Cameron said. His remarks came as shadow home secretary Chris Grayling set out plans to reverse Labour's binge-drinking crisis, put more police on the streets and target gang ring-leaders.
In his first major speech since taking over his post, Mr Grayling said he would be "unashamedly tough" with youth crime."
So much for "hug a hoodie!"
Can a bandwagon actually DO a U-turn without crashing? I think not.
Sunday 22 February 2009
Joined-Up Government
This was a much-vaunted phrase in government circles a while ago. Personally, I suspect that it was probably a product of the Blair spin machine, and therefore suspect even then, and its current parlous state is yet another indicator, if one were needed, of how far off track Broon and his cohorts have been blown by the hurricanes of economic mayhem. Not that there was ever much mileage in the idea anyway.
It was always possible, if you looked carefully, to find examples of the type of mismatch between two conflicting areas of government policy, although these used to be relatively minor, and more amusing than harmful.
These days, there are so many examples of huge gaping yawning chasms between the aims of conflicting parts of government, or sometimes within the same department, that it’s hard to find a single example of coordinated action.
Take the car industry. Everyone agrees (with the possible exception of Jeremy Clarkson) that it can only be a good thing, from the point of view of the planet as a whole and the fight against climate change, that we use our cars less, and generally that public transport should be joined up, integrated and more freely available.
Yet at the same time we are dishing out money like a drunk in a casino to the motor industry, which is apparently teetering on the brink of collapse. To make more cars that no one can afford to buy, while there are already unsold acres of them parked up on every available airfield and storage space up and down the land. Oh, and they have also given the go ahead to Heathrow’s new runway. Yet a genuinely useful public transport project such as Crossrail still languishes in the doldrums.
It would be a start of course, if Broon and his band of merry men acknowledged that this largesse to the British motor industry ("British" in name only by virtue of it being located here, yet owned by multinationals) was the result of the unhappy coincidence whereby most of these plants which are threatened with closure, with catastrophic unemployment levels resulting, are situated in Labour constituencies.
I am editing this posting to record my complete flabbergastedness, if that is a word, at the news this morning (23 Feb 09) that LDV is now going to the government asking for a loan of several millions. While I have every sympathy for the LDV workforce and suppliers, the company is owned by a Russian gas billionaire. Can I just say, as someone who has been paying extraordinarily high gas bills for the last winter, as a result of proifteering by the likes of LDV's owner, that I already gave on this one. No, you cannot take it out of my taxes. Let Mr Gasovitch put his roubles in, since he appears to have gazillions of them. It's what I would have to do if my company got into difficulties.
Take home ownership. Another example. The government announced packages of help for people struggling with their mortgages, back in November, but omitted to mention that it won’t start until April. While my own experience of dealing with government does tend to confirm Andy Burnham’s recent comment that getting something like this up and running in six months counts as fast-tracking it, in government terms, this will not be much comfort to those whose homes are repossessed in March. And again, have they thought it through? What counts as “struggling”? And this bountiful gift is brought to you by the same government that wants to means-test disabled people to try and get them off incapacity benefit and into (non-existent) work! The same government that encourages people to phone the DWP hotline and shop a benefit cheat, while its senior members are indulging in questionable practices with second home allowances.
And now, two hours since I posted this originally, Broon has popped up on Channel 4 news calling for an end to 100% mortgages - and Northern Rock has started lending again, using taxpayer's money: you could not make it up.
Take justice. We stand up there at the UN, supporting the ideas of international justice (what's left of it anyway, post GW Bush) and we freely participate in allowing a relatively harmless hacker from London to be extradited to the USA, because he managed to penetrate the computer system of the Department of Defense, looking for stuff on UFOs, whereas we allow the US administration to meddle in British Justice by telling our law lords what they can and can't say about the treatment of a British subject at Guantanamo, and when the USA refuses to allow two of its pilots to appear in front of a properly convened coroners' court in Oxfordshire, in the case of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, we roll over and let them stick two fingers up (well, one finger, since they are American) to the English legal system.
It is the fundamental dishonesty of it that really sticks in my craw. When Gordon Broon said “British Jobs for British Workers” he knew that there was no way he could deliver on that statement without the UK withdrawing from the EU. Which of course is about as likely as the devil going past the window on a skateboard. At least that particular piece of doublethink came back to bite him on the bum in the form of the actions of the Lindsey Oil Refinery pickets. But of course what they meant when they parroted the phrase back at him, was British jobs for white British workers.
And it is on that issue, free movement between countries and who we do and don’t allow in and out of the UK, that we’ve just seen the most breathtaking recent examples of facing both ways at once.
I am taking this from the Indymedia web site, though it was brought to my attention independently of them. It is just that their account provides a ready-made background to the case and saves me acres of re-typing...
A family of Algerian asylum seekers were taken from their home in Hove to Yarl’s Wood detention centre at 6.30am on the morning of Wednesday 11th February pending deportation. The Home Office plan to remove them to Algeria.
Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane have been in the UK since 2002. Their 2 year old daughter Nouha was born in Brighton in 2006 and has lived here all her life. The family has made a life here and has many links in the local community. Assia Souhalia fled Algeria in fear for her life in 2002 after her family had suffered years of violence. Two of her brothers, Rachid and Brahim, both policemen, were murdered in two separate and premeditated shootings in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Neither brother was involved in political action. Upon hearing of the death of Assia’s eldest brother Rachid, their mother, Cherifa, suffered a heart attack and died. Since then Assia’s family have repeatedly received death threats and in 1994 Assia’s brother, Brahim, was murdered. Two of Assia’s remaining brothers and sisters both fled Algiers.
In 2002 Assia travelled to the UK with the help of members of her family. Since Assia arrived in the UK only one man has been arrested in relation to the murders of her family members. In 2007 Assia’s sister was badly wounded in a bomb attack. Assia is afraid for her safety should she be deported to Algeria.
The latest on this case is that Assia passed a message from Heathrow last Tuesday that they were not flying that day because there was a 'problem with the ticket'. From 5.30am that morning, campaigners had been talking to BA flight crew and passengers on BA 894 to Algiers (the flight Assia, Athmane and Nouha were scheduled to fly on). The staff and passengers had been told of the Souhalia family's situation, that they feared for their lives if deported to Algeria and that the deportation was depriving Nouha of the right to live in the country where she was born. The passengers were asked not to stand by and let the family be forcibly deported. They were asked to speak to the pilot of BA 895 and request that the plane did not fly with the Souhalia family on board.
Indymedia believes that the real reason that the Souhalia family were not deported on BA 895 was because of pressure from the staff and passengers. The Souhalia family are currently in transit back to Yarl's Wood.
Contrast this with the sanctimonious twaddle coming from all sides of the political spectrum over the case of Abu Quatada. Personally, I don’t think it’s a disgrace that the European Court of Human Rights awarded him compensation. I think that human rights are universal, even for the likes of people who probably don’t deserve them, and you have to apply the law universally without fear nor favour, for justice to be done, and if someone has been wrongfully detained under the law, they are entitled to compensation, whoever they are. That is what makes us the good guys.
But I do contrast the effort being put into deporting Assia Souhalia and her family with the fact that Abu Quatada has been going through the deportation process since 2002. How come we are doing dawn raids and bundling innocent children onto planes to send them to God knows what uncertain fate, yet this man, who was apparently such a threat to our national security that he had to be illegally detained without trial, is still languishing in Belmarsh. If he’s that bad, put him on trial, and stop pissing about.
Another week dawns tomorrow. Is it too much to hope that sometime soon we might see someone come along in Government who can recognise these glaring mismatches and put them right in a just and statesmanlike manner?
Did I just hear a skateboard go past the window?
It was always possible, if you looked carefully, to find examples of the type of mismatch between two conflicting areas of government policy, although these used to be relatively minor, and more amusing than harmful.
These days, there are so many examples of huge gaping yawning chasms between the aims of conflicting parts of government, or sometimes within the same department, that it’s hard to find a single example of coordinated action.
Take the car industry. Everyone agrees (with the possible exception of Jeremy Clarkson) that it can only be a good thing, from the point of view of the planet as a whole and the fight against climate change, that we use our cars less, and generally that public transport should be joined up, integrated and more freely available.
Yet at the same time we are dishing out money like a drunk in a casino to the motor industry, which is apparently teetering on the brink of collapse. To make more cars that no one can afford to buy, while there are already unsold acres of them parked up on every available airfield and storage space up and down the land. Oh, and they have also given the go ahead to Heathrow’s new runway. Yet a genuinely useful public transport project such as Crossrail still languishes in the doldrums.
It would be a start of course, if Broon and his band of merry men acknowledged that this largesse to the British motor industry ("British" in name only by virtue of it being located here, yet owned by multinationals) was the result of the unhappy coincidence whereby most of these plants which are threatened with closure, with catastrophic unemployment levels resulting, are situated in Labour constituencies.
I am editing this posting to record my complete flabbergastedness, if that is a word, at the news this morning (23 Feb 09) that LDV is now going to the government asking for a loan of several millions. While I have every sympathy for the LDV workforce and suppliers, the company is owned by a Russian gas billionaire. Can I just say, as someone who has been paying extraordinarily high gas bills for the last winter, as a result of proifteering by the likes of LDV's owner, that I already gave on this one. No, you cannot take it out of my taxes. Let Mr Gasovitch put his roubles in, since he appears to have gazillions of them. It's what I would have to do if my company got into difficulties.
Take home ownership. Another example. The government announced packages of help for people struggling with their mortgages, back in November, but omitted to mention that it won’t start until April. While my own experience of dealing with government does tend to confirm Andy Burnham’s recent comment that getting something like this up and running in six months counts as fast-tracking it, in government terms, this will not be much comfort to those whose homes are repossessed in March. And again, have they thought it through? What counts as “struggling”? And this bountiful gift is brought to you by the same government that wants to means-test disabled people to try and get them off incapacity benefit and into (non-existent) work! The same government that encourages people to phone the DWP hotline and shop a benefit cheat, while its senior members are indulging in questionable practices with second home allowances.
And now, two hours since I posted this originally, Broon has popped up on Channel 4 news calling for an end to 100% mortgages - and Northern Rock has started lending again, using taxpayer's money: you could not make it up.
Take justice. We stand up there at the UN, supporting the ideas of international justice (what's left of it anyway, post GW Bush) and we freely participate in allowing a relatively harmless hacker from London to be extradited to the USA, because he managed to penetrate the computer system of the Department of Defense, looking for stuff on UFOs, whereas we allow the US administration to meddle in British Justice by telling our law lords what they can and can't say about the treatment of a British subject at Guantanamo, and when the USA refuses to allow two of its pilots to appear in front of a properly convened coroners' court in Oxfordshire, in the case of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, we roll over and let them stick two fingers up (well, one finger, since they are American) to the English legal system.
It is the fundamental dishonesty of it that really sticks in my craw. When Gordon Broon said “British Jobs for British Workers” he knew that there was no way he could deliver on that statement without the UK withdrawing from the EU. Which of course is about as likely as the devil going past the window on a skateboard. At least that particular piece of doublethink came back to bite him on the bum in the form of the actions of the Lindsey Oil Refinery pickets. But of course what they meant when they parroted the phrase back at him, was British jobs for white British workers.
And it is on that issue, free movement between countries and who we do and don’t allow in and out of the UK, that we’ve just seen the most breathtaking recent examples of facing both ways at once.
I am taking this from the Indymedia web site, though it was brought to my attention independently of them. It is just that their account provides a ready-made background to the case and saves me acres of re-typing...
A family of Algerian asylum seekers were taken from their home in Hove to Yarl’s Wood detention centre at 6.30am on the morning of Wednesday 11th February pending deportation. The Home Office plan to remove them to Algeria.
Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane have been in the UK since 2002. Their 2 year old daughter Nouha was born in Brighton in 2006 and has lived here all her life. The family has made a life here and has many links in the local community. Assia Souhalia fled Algeria in fear for her life in 2002 after her family had suffered years of violence. Two of her brothers, Rachid and Brahim, both policemen, were murdered in two separate and premeditated shootings in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Neither brother was involved in political action. Upon hearing of the death of Assia’s eldest brother Rachid, their mother, Cherifa, suffered a heart attack and died. Since then Assia’s family have repeatedly received death threats and in 1994 Assia’s brother, Brahim, was murdered. Two of Assia’s remaining brothers and sisters both fled Algiers.
In 2002 Assia travelled to the UK with the help of members of her family. Since Assia arrived in the UK only one man has been arrested in relation to the murders of her family members. In 2007 Assia’s sister was badly wounded in a bomb attack. Assia is afraid for her safety should she be deported to Algeria.
The latest on this case is that Assia passed a message from Heathrow last Tuesday that they were not flying that day because there was a 'problem with the ticket'. From 5.30am that morning, campaigners had been talking to BA flight crew and passengers on BA 894 to Algiers (the flight Assia, Athmane and Nouha were scheduled to fly on). The staff and passengers had been told of the Souhalia family's situation, that they feared for their lives if deported to Algeria and that the deportation was depriving Nouha of the right to live in the country where she was born. The passengers were asked not to stand by and let the family be forcibly deported. They were asked to speak to the pilot of BA 895 and request that the plane did not fly with the Souhalia family on board.
Indymedia believes that the real reason that the Souhalia family were not deported on BA 895 was because of pressure from the staff and passengers. The Souhalia family are currently in transit back to Yarl's Wood.
Contrast this with the sanctimonious twaddle coming from all sides of the political spectrum over the case of Abu Quatada. Personally, I don’t think it’s a disgrace that the European Court of Human Rights awarded him compensation. I think that human rights are universal, even for the likes of people who probably don’t deserve them, and you have to apply the law universally without fear nor favour, for justice to be done, and if someone has been wrongfully detained under the law, they are entitled to compensation, whoever they are. That is what makes us the good guys.
But I do contrast the effort being put into deporting Assia Souhalia and her family with the fact that Abu Quatada has been going through the deportation process since 2002. How come we are doing dawn raids and bundling innocent children onto planes to send them to God knows what uncertain fate, yet this man, who was apparently such a threat to our national security that he had to be illegally detained without trial, is still languishing in Belmarsh. If he’s that bad, put him on trial, and stop pissing about.
Another week dawns tomorrow. Is it too much to hope that sometime soon we might see someone come along in Government who can recognise these glaring mismatches and put them right in a just and statesmanlike manner?
Did I just hear a skateboard go past the window?
Local Mayors for Local People
The Tories are threatening to create eight more local mayors of large towns if they win the next election. Ever the man to jump on a passing bandwagon, David Cameron, or, more likely, his advisors, have seized on the idea that what people want is apparently more involvement in local politics at a local level, with local decision making. He even thinks (or he says he thinks, which is not quite the same thing) that there should be local referendums on key issues affecting local communities.
The thing is, though, we already have perfectly adequate structures for local government, without the needless addition of extra tiers of bureaucracy. In fact, in a bold statement of Bolshy Party policy, I think we should get rid of the existing mayors we have already got, and go back to the more democratically accountable structures of council meetings that are open to the public and capable of being scrutinised.
In the areas where you have got mayors already, local government has morphed into a sort of mini-me version of national government, and decisions being taken by a closed “cabinet” of officials and advisors around the chief executive. Even some large county and metropolitan borough councils have adopted this strategy. This is the sort of thinking that led to councils investing our money in Icelandic dodgy banks without actually telling anyone until it was too late.
While it is all fine and dandy to encourage people to participate in local democracy, and I am all for local decisions being taken by local people using the established channels, gimmicks are not the way. By “gimmicks” I mean things like text voting and local referendums. I particularly think local referendums are a bad idea because inevitably they will be anti-democratic in that they will take away the power from the existing decision making process and people will vote from the standpoint of a narrow, self-interested viewpoint, without considering the wider picture. So a referendum that promises a cut in council tax in return for the council cutting its expenditure on, say, services to the homeless, would probably be a slam-dunk. In fact, I predict that the general pressure for such referendums would always be on that axis of “what can the council cut to bring down our council tax”.
And that is before you get to the stage of (for instance) BNP dominated councils staging local referendums on “should we send all the Muslims in our town home”. Or loopy would-be guardians of public morailty calling for referendums on stringing up paedophiles, paediatricians, pedaloes and pedometers Bad, bad, idea.
I am not denying that there are some cases where council tax is spent unwisely, but my point is that there are existing structures in place to deal with the business of holding a council to account, without inventing cockamamie new ones. The amount of council tax a local authority has to raise in any case, and the amount of wriggle room it has to take its own expenditure decisions anyway, is ultimately determined by the size of the grant it gets from central government, and if the Tories do get in next time, by some misfortune, this is hardly likely to increase, so the pressure to cut costs will already be on, before you start adding referendums to the mix.
If you really wanted to get local people interested in local politics again, one way of doing it would be to show them that local politics can work, and can have an effect. And that their actions can make a difference. And to educate them about the issues. Using the existing structures of local government, with no additional expenditure and no need to alter a system which has worked for over a century.
But of course that is not “new” or “sexy” and it doesn’t fit in with Dave being “down with the yoof, innit”.
So, unless we resist this idea, and point out just why it is so facile, we are going to be stuck with the consequences of a series of ill-judged, arbitrary local votes probably based on false premises and partial self-interested understanding of the issues, another kick in the teeth for the many public sector and council workers who do put in the effort, largely unappreciated and probably underpaid, to make sure our bins get emptied, our kids get taught, there is some sort of safety net for the unfortunate, and there are books on the shelves of the libraries.
The thing is, though, we already have perfectly adequate structures for local government, without the needless addition of extra tiers of bureaucracy. In fact, in a bold statement of Bolshy Party policy, I think we should get rid of the existing mayors we have already got, and go back to the more democratically accountable structures of council meetings that are open to the public and capable of being scrutinised.
In the areas where you have got mayors already, local government has morphed into a sort of mini-me version of national government, and decisions being taken by a closed “cabinet” of officials and advisors around the chief executive. Even some large county and metropolitan borough councils have adopted this strategy. This is the sort of thinking that led to councils investing our money in Icelandic dodgy banks without actually telling anyone until it was too late.
While it is all fine and dandy to encourage people to participate in local democracy, and I am all for local decisions being taken by local people using the established channels, gimmicks are not the way. By “gimmicks” I mean things like text voting and local referendums. I particularly think local referendums are a bad idea because inevitably they will be anti-democratic in that they will take away the power from the existing decision making process and people will vote from the standpoint of a narrow, self-interested viewpoint, without considering the wider picture. So a referendum that promises a cut in council tax in return for the council cutting its expenditure on, say, services to the homeless, would probably be a slam-dunk. In fact, I predict that the general pressure for such referendums would always be on that axis of “what can the council cut to bring down our council tax”.
And that is before you get to the stage of (for instance) BNP dominated councils staging local referendums on “should we send all the Muslims in our town home”. Or loopy would-be guardians of public morailty calling for referendums on stringing up paedophiles, paediatricians, pedaloes and pedometers Bad, bad, idea.
I am not denying that there are some cases where council tax is spent unwisely, but my point is that there are existing structures in place to deal with the business of holding a council to account, without inventing cockamamie new ones. The amount of council tax a local authority has to raise in any case, and the amount of wriggle room it has to take its own expenditure decisions anyway, is ultimately determined by the size of the grant it gets from central government, and if the Tories do get in next time, by some misfortune, this is hardly likely to increase, so the pressure to cut costs will already be on, before you start adding referendums to the mix.
If you really wanted to get local people interested in local politics again, one way of doing it would be to show them that local politics can work, and can have an effect. And that their actions can make a difference. And to educate them about the issues. Using the existing structures of local government, with no additional expenditure and no need to alter a system which has worked for over a century.
But of course that is not “new” or “sexy” and it doesn’t fit in with Dave being “down with the yoof, innit”.
So, unless we resist this idea, and point out just why it is so facile, we are going to be stuck with the consequences of a series of ill-judged, arbitrary local votes probably based on false premises and partial self-interested understanding of the issues, another kick in the teeth for the many public sector and council workers who do put in the effort, largely unappreciated and probably underpaid, to make sure our bins get emptied, our kids get taught, there is some sort of safety net for the unfortunate, and there are books on the shelves of the libraries.
Mine's a Stella
The only surprising thing about the points which former MI5 chief Stella Rimington raised in her recent interview, in which she complained about the surveillance culture and the fact that we are living in a virtual police state fuelled by anti-libertarian legislation forced through on the pretext that it will somehow make us safer from terrorism, is that it was Stella Rimington who said it.
Other than that, it falls into the category of "an announcement from the Ministry of the Bleedin' Obvious". There can now only be a few remote indigenous people in the Kalahari who haven’t realised the underlying truth of what she said yet.
And the most chilling thing about it, was that the government didn’t really try and put up any counter argument. I mean, here you have the former head of MI5 – of all people – saying that this has all gone too far, and the government response is “Yeah, so what? What are you going to do about it?”
Other than that, it falls into the category of "an announcement from the Ministry of the Bleedin' Obvious". There can now only be a few remote indigenous people in the Kalahari who haven’t realised the underlying truth of what she said yet.
And the most chilling thing about it, was that the government didn’t really try and put up any counter argument. I mean, here you have the former head of MI5 – of all people – saying that this has all gone too far, and the government response is “Yeah, so what? What are you going to do about it?”
Friday 13 February 2009
Who's been eating HIS porridge?
Too many people are getting Legal Aid, says the Tory Shadow Justice Minister Damian Green. He popped up on various radio shows recently claiming that the explosion in Legal Aid expenditure was because of people being encouraged by the Human Rights Act to mount appeals and challenges that were just not “worthwhile”.
Mr Green is of course an expert on the legal system, having recently had his collar felt by Inspector Knacker of the Yard when he was arrested for the supposed offence of “grooming the mole” over Home Office leaks. Sadly, it looks as though his direct experience of the prison system will stop there, and he will not be expected to sew mailbags, eat porridge, or be known as “Brenda” in the showers by a homicidal “lifer” from Lewisham.
It is the assumptions behind Mr Green’s statement that I find potentially disturbing. As I understand it, you are either entitled to Legal Aid or you aren’t, and the idea of a politician deciding what is or isn’t a “worthwhile” use of Legal Aid is not only incredibly arrogant but also, if followed through to its logical conclusion, incredibly dangerous. And the poor old Human Rights Act is getting it from all sides, with Jack Straw wanting to dilute it and replace it with an official list of things he says it’s OK to do, as well. All I can say is, if both Damian Green and Jack Straw are against the Human Rights Act, well that settles it, I’m all for it.
The way I understand Legal Aid, as well, is that there isn’t a set budget, a “pot” of money, after which there is no more. To hear Mr Green you would think that you went to see your solicitor and he says, “I’d like to help you with Legal Aid, Mr Bloggs, but unfortunately Nosher Briggs in Parkhurst has used up the extra budget for 2009 in a completely quixotic and vexatious action under the Human Rights Act.” I can’t believe it works like that.
On one fact, at least, Mr Green is correct. There are a lot more people in prison now than there were ten years ago. More prisoners = more appeals, and more appeals = more Legal Aid. It’s not exactly rocket science. Prisons are full to bursting and the only solution we’re being offered is to build more of them. But is there another way?
When you look at it, there are a lot of people in prison for relatively minor offences, people who just should not be there. At the same time, it is readily acknowledged that there are lots of things in society at large that need doing, and the armed forces are suffering what seems to be an almost permanent crisis of recruitment. I’d like to explore solving all of those problems by bringing them together into one solution.
It has long been Bolshy Party Policy that, apart from the basic defence of the UK, the armed forces should serve as a sort of auxiliary civil defence organisation. We don’t actually have a civil defence organisation in the UK as such, which is why we struggle with the emergency services augmented by the Army, Navy and RAF when we have to deal with extreme weather events, such as flooding.
Within the prison population are large numbers of able-bodied males (and females) whom the taxpayer is currently supporting to stay in their cells and stare at the walls all day. I’m not talking about letting axe-murderers and child molesters out on licence to fill sandbags, but rather something along these lines. A certain range of “non-lethal” offences should be selected. Then, say you are convicted of one of these offences and you get four years. Currently you could expect to be out in two. My proposal is that after you have served a year, you become eligible for consideration for the Civil Defence Scheme. In conjunction with the armed forces, you learn about civil defence techniques and, under careful supervision, eventually progress, while being trained in useful skills, to actually, eventually, being allowed to participate in “real” civil defence work. If at any time during this period you do anything against the rules of the scheme, you forfeit all your remaining remission and privileges and you go back into the slammer for what remains of your full original sentence.
That way, when there is a national emergency, such as the flooding, there will be a readily available pool of labour to help the hard-pressed emergency services and the army. The vast numbers of people who are currently clogging up the prison system to no useful end will be providing some valuable service in return for their drain on the taxpayer’s purse, and gaining some skills, training and self-esteem along the way. One would also like to hope that their skills might help them find a job. Perhaps the next step could be a “bridge”, via the Territorial Army, into the forces proper, if they prove themselves.
Critics of this idea will say, of course (if they are Conservative) that it is far too liberal and smacks of sending offenders off on white-water rafting weekends, whereas liberal critics will see it as being too harsh, one step away from the chain gang and Cool Hand Luke. If it does attract criticism of this sort, from all sides, I will view that as a hopeful sign that I am on the right track.
Mr Green is of course an expert on the legal system, having recently had his collar felt by Inspector Knacker of the Yard when he was arrested for the supposed offence of “grooming the mole” over Home Office leaks. Sadly, it looks as though his direct experience of the prison system will stop there, and he will not be expected to sew mailbags, eat porridge, or be known as “Brenda” in the showers by a homicidal “lifer” from Lewisham.
It is the assumptions behind Mr Green’s statement that I find potentially disturbing. As I understand it, you are either entitled to Legal Aid or you aren’t, and the idea of a politician deciding what is or isn’t a “worthwhile” use of Legal Aid is not only incredibly arrogant but also, if followed through to its logical conclusion, incredibly dangerous. And the poor old Human Rights Act is getting it from all sides, with Jack Straw wanting to dilute it and replace it with an official list of things he says it’s OK to do, as well. All I can say is, if both Damian Green and Jack Straw are against the Human Rights Act, well that settles it, I’m all for it.
The way I understand Legal Aid, as well, is that there isn’t a set budget, a “pot” of money, after which there is no more. To hear Mr Green you would think that you went to see your solicitor and he says, “I’d like to help you with Legal Aid, Mr Bloggs, but unfortunately Nosher Briggs in Parkhurst has used up the extra budget for 2009 in a completely quixotic and vexatious action under the Human Rights Act.” I can’t believe it works like that.
On one fact, at least, Mr Green is correct. There are a lot more people in prison now than there were ten years ago. More prisoners = more appeals, and more appeals = more Legal Aid. It’s not exactly rocket science. Prisons are full to bursting and the only solution we’re being offered is to build more of them. But is there another way?
When you look at it, there are a lot of people in prison for relatively minor offences, people who just should not be there. At the same time, it is readily acknowledged that there are lots of things in society at large that need doing, and the armed forces are suffering what seems to be an almost permanent crisis of recruitment. I’d like to explore solving all of those problems by bringing them together into one solution.
It has long been Bolshy Party Policy that, apart from the basic defence of the UK, the armed forces should serve as a sort of auxiliary civil defence organisation. We don’t actually have a civil defence organisation in the UK as such, which is why we struggle with the emergency services augmented by the Army, Navy and RAF when we have to deal with extreme weather events, such as flooding.
Within the prison population are large numbers of able-bodied males (and females) whom the taxpayer is currently supporting to stay in their cells and stare at the walls all day. I’m not talking about letting axe-murderers and child molesters out on licence to fill sandbags, but rather something along these lines. A certain range of “non-lethal” offences should be selected. Then, say you are convicted of one of these offences and you get four years. Currently you could expect to be out in two. My proposal is that after you have served a year, you become eligible for consideration for the Civil Defence Scheme. In conjunction with the armed forces, you learn about civil defence techniques and, under careful supervision, eventually progress, while being trained in useful skills, to actually, eventually, being allowed to participate in “real” civil defence work. If at any time during this period you do anything against the rules of the scheme, you forfeit all your remaining remission and privileges and you go back into the slammer for what remains of your full original sentence.
That way, when there is a national emergency, such as the flooding, there will be a readily available pool of labour to help the hard-pressed emergency services and the army. The vast numbers of people who are currently clogging up the prison system to no useful end will be providing some valuable service in return for their drain on the taxpayer’s purse, and gaining some skills, training and self-esteem along the way. One would also like to hope that their skills might help them find a job. Perhaps the next step could be a “bridge”, via the Territorial Army, into the forces proper, if they prove themselves.
Critics of this idea will say, of course (if they are Conservative) that it is far too liberal and smacks of sending offenders off on white-water rafting weekends, whereas liberal critics will see it as being too harsh, one step away from the chain gang and Cool Hand Luke. If it does attract criticism of this sort, from all sides, I will view that as a hopeful sign that I am on the right track.
Monday 9 February 2009
Children in Need?
The Tories have finally woken up to the issue I highlighted several blogs ago, namely that there is a shortage of social workers. No shit, Sherlock. Well done, Dave. They omitted to go on and elaborate further on the subject (confining themselves as usual to shroud-waving and jumping on bandwagons) so allow me to elaborate. There is a shortage of social workers because their workload is high, their wages are low (comparative to the responsibility they bear) and the resources are few. They are frequently damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and if they make a mistake, they are likely to find themselves crucified by the Sun and the Daily Mail, two papers who support the Tories but not, obviously, to the extent of campaigning for more social workers.
The editorial stance of both papers veers diametrically between castigating the likes of social workers for being part of the PC Brigade (without pausing to reflect that social workers are often themselves victims of the box-ticking, target driven, risk averse society rather than perpetrators of it) and scapegoating them when things go wrong. Never once do they make the connection that if you want more and better social workers, your council tax must go up, because they know this isn’t what their readers want to hear!
Children generally have a poor time of it these days, if Lord Layard is to be believed. But once again, Lord Layard’s diatribe is merely a litany of symptoms, not of diseases. The real root cause of the malaise which is destroying society is worship of the money-god. These days, your sole worth is judged by how much money you have. We live in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself society where everyone wants fame, celebrity and money, now, without having to work for it, and without any responsibilities. It is this refusal by people to take responsibility for their own actions, the idea that it is always someone else’s fault, that leads to schools being closed at the first hint of snow. Local authorities would rather risk the wrath of a posse of angry parents (angry at being forced to take responsibility for their offspring!) than an expensive lawsuit for personal injury and negligence when little Johnny slips on the ice and breaks his leg, because it’s cheaper. All back to money again. Ironically, the kids who were sent home from school and who, as a result, were forced to spend some quality time with their parents, probably had a more fulfilling day as a result.
What has all this to do with Children In Need? Children In Need is, of course, the BBC’s annual jamboree for charity, in which Auntie Beeb puts on the motley for one day and raises money for “good causes”. It’s joined by Red Nose Day, a similar bun-fight, which is coming up next month. Rod Liddle has described Red Nose Day, in The Spectator two years ago, as a “bullying smugfest” … and that was before the BBC decided to set itself up as the arbiter of which children deserve charity help and which children don’t. (I’ll give you a clue: children in Gaza who have been traumatised, maimed or made homeless by Israel’s war crimes don’t deserve charity, according to the BBC, whereas programmes for youth outreach in Birmingham – that should really be provided by the government or local authority-funded social workers – do need to be funded by people willing to dress up like prats or sit in a bath of baked beans.)
Well, I for one will be boycotting Red Nose Day and Children In Need for the foreseeable. Both of them treat the symptoms and not the disease and, since the BBC’s insane decision not to show the D.E.C. Gaza appeal, for me, at any rate, they have a strong whiff of added hypocrisy which makes them even more unpalatable.
If the BBC, the Tory Party, Red Nose Day, Children In Need and anyone else who feels the need to postulate sanctimonious twaddle about the well-being of children, were really serious about the subject, they must acknowledge, and embrace, the following uncompromising truths:
More social workers, and better social workers, cost more money.
Well meaning as they may be, things like Children In Need and Red Nose Day only treat the symptoms, not the disease, in their belief that money can cure everything, and now the BBC has no moral authority as a peddler of charity anyway, post-Gaza.
What we really need is a return to a close-knit, mutually co-operative society based around adults (married or not, straight or gay) giving long-term loving care and development to help children have safe yet fulfilling lives.
The government should be providing much more to make this happen at home instead of giving overseas aid to questionable regimes that spend it on arms or weapons systems instead of on the recipients for whom it was intended, or to countries such as India which has the wherewithal within its own coffers to fund space programmes and nuclear weapons but not to feed the beggars of Mumbai, it seems.
That would be a start. Then we could all begin to rejoice at the prospect of no more “children in need”.
The editorial stance of both papers veers diametrically between castigating the likes of social workers for being part of the PC Brigade (without pausing to reflect that social workers are often themselves victims of the box-ticking, target driven, risk averse society rather than perpetrators of it) and scapegoating them when things go wrong. Never once do they make the connection that if you want more and better social workers, your council tax must go up, because they know this isn’t what their readers want to hear!
Children generally have a poor time of it these days, if Lord Layard is to be believed. But once again, Lord Layard’s diatribe is merely a litany of symptoms, not of diseases. The real root cause of the malaise which is destroying society is worship of the money-god. These days, your sole worth is judged by how much money you have. We live in a dog-eat-dog, every man for himself society where everyone wants fame, celebrity and money, now, without having to work for it, and without any responsibilities. It is this refusal by people to take responsibility for their own actions, the idea that it is always someone else’s fault, that leads to schools being closed at the first hint of snow. Local authorities would rather risk the wrath of a posse of angry parents (angry at being forced to take responsibility for their offspring!) than an expensive lawsuit for personal injury and negligence when little Johnny slips on the ice and breaks his leg, because it’s cheaper. All back to money again. Ironically, the kids who were sent home from school and who, as a result, were forced to spend some quality time with their parents, probably had a more fulfilling day as a result.
What has all this to do with Children In Need? Children In Need is, of course, the BBC’s annual jamboree for charity, in which Auntie Beeb puts on the motley for one day and raises money for “good causes”. It’s joined by Red Nose Day, a similar bun-fight, which is coming up next month. Rod Liddle has described Red Nose Day, in The Spectator two years ago, as a “bullying smugfest” … and that was before the BBC decided to set itself up as the arbiter of which children deserve charity help and which children don’t. (I’ll give you a clue: children in Gaza who have been traumatised, maimed or made homeless by Israel’s war crimes don’t deserve charity, according to the BBC, whereas programmes for youth outreach in Birmingham – that should really be provided by the government or local authority-funded social workers – do need to be funded by people willing to dress up like prats or sit in a bath of baked beans.)
Well, I for one will be boycotting Red Nose Day and Children In Need for the foreseeable. Both of them treat the symptoms and not the disease and, since the BBC’s insane decision not to show the D.E.C. Gaza appeal, for me, at any rate, they have a strong whiff of added hypocrisy which makes them even more unpalatable.
If the BBC, the Tory Party, Red Nose Day, Children In Need and anyone else who feels the need to postulate sanctimonious twaddle about the well-being of children, were really serious about the subject, they must acknowledge, and embrace, the following uncompromising truths:
More social workers, and better social workers, cost more money.
Well meaning as they may be, things like Children In Need and Red Nose Day only treat the symptoms, not the disease, in their belief that money can cure everything, and now the BBC has no moral authority as a peddler of charity anyway, post-Gaza.
What we really need is a return to a close-knit, mutually co-operative society based around adults (married or not, straight or gay) giving long-term loving care and development to help children have safe yet fulfilling lives.
The government should be providing much more to make this happen at home instead of giving overseas aid to questionable regimes that spend it on arms or weapons systems instead of on the recipients for whom it was intended, or to countries such as India which has the wherewithal within its own coffers to fund space programmes and nuclear weapons but not to feed the beggars of Mumbai, it seems.
That would be a start. Then we could all begin to rejoice at the prospect of no more “children in need”.
Sunday 8 February 2009
A Message to The Royal Bank of Scotland
Your bonus for this year is that you've still got a job. Deal with it, and move on.
Salt of the Earth
There's been a lot of blether, woffle and guff in the media last week about Local Authorities running out of salt. One bit of snow and the country grinds to a halt, it wasn't like this in the old days when we had to pay the mill owner for permission to go to work, etc etc children today they don't know they're born, schools closing because of Health and Safety gorn mad, bimey guv'nor and so on...and so on.
I've waited in vain for anyone to mention how difficult this snowy and icy weather must be for homeless people. And waited. And waited, so it looks like I'll have to do it.
One of the problems of course is the differing definitions of "homeless". The Department of Communities, under the control of feisty Krankie-lookalike Hazel Blears, claims that there were only 483 people "sleeping rough" in the UK in June 2008.
Even if that were true, it is still 483 too many, and you can bet your sweet palookah that the figure will have gone up dramatically since that time, with jobs being axed left right and centre because of the credit crunch.
Shelter, the homeless charity, has a multiple definition of homelessness that also includes people living in overcrowded accommodation, people at risk of domestic violence etc., as you would expect.
Crisis, the charity that tries to help London's homeless, has a report which examines these issues as well, and comes to the conclusion that:
We suggest a range for the overall number of single homeless people of between 310,000 and 380,000.
This is a big jump from 483 rough sleepers, even allowing for the fact that one would expect this Government routinely to massage downwards any statistics that are likely to a) embarrass them and b) lead to them actually having to do something.
Maybe the true figure is somewhere in between.
I know I bang on a lot about treating the disease and not the symptoms - over a wide range of issues - because I see it everywhere I look. But in this case, if there is anyone sleeping rough these cold winter nights, we really do need to do both.
It is a scandal even if there are only 483 people sleeping rough this winter and we must do something to rescue them.
The long term issues of homelessness have their roots deep in the very fabric of how society is organised, in the loss of community responsibility, the break up of the family, and the failure of the authorities to ensure a continued and commensurate supply of affordable housing to cope with the demand.
I would like to see more use made of the large amounts of derelict land in the UK. If necessary, central government should “nationalise” or requisition brown field sites that meet certain criteria. They could acquire the land for a fair price to both sides.
They could then parcel it out into “settlements”. Each settlement is a cluster of a set number of eco-friendly, prefabricated, timber-framed kit buildings set around a central source of services, e.g. a small CHP plant, green space, etc, planned along the lines of those designed by the Walter Segal Trust.
The inhabitants of each settlement would then sign a covenant to stay for five years. The government provides the infrastructure and then the settlers provide the labour, as a co-operative, to build their own houses on the site. The houses are identikit, prefabricated. We built lots of "prefabs" after World War Two to repair the housing stock which had been destroyed by Nazi bombing raids, we need a similar effort now. There's nothing wrong with prefabs. I was born in one, but these would be eco-friendly "Uberprefabs" fit for the 21st century.
They then have a choice.
§ If they stay five years paying rent, they have the option to buy (?) but first the cost of the house itself gets charged to their account. But the rent they have paid to date counts as back-dated mortgage.
§ Or they can continue to rent until they decide to buy – at any time after five years.
If they buy, and later decide to sell, there are restrictive covenants on the kinds of people they can sell to, e.g. locals, young families, starters on the housing ladder, key workers, etc.
OK - even though it's now official Bolshy Party Policy (because I say so!) it's still a sketchy plan, and easy to pick holes in. It needs a lot of work. But I haven't seen anything better coming from the people whose job it actually is to sort this stuff out, and who seem to be claiming a lot of salary and expenses for so doing.
With the construction industry in the doldrums, and the government looking around for something to throw money at, now is the time to galvanise the affordable housing situation by starting on schemes such as this. OK, it's not perfect. But which would you rather have? - a patch of derelict land with a ragged collection of homeless rough sleepers huddled round a makeshift fire, desperately trying to keep warm, or the same patch of derelict ground with a small number of eco-friendly social housing units on it, adding to the general stock of affordable housing and providing worthwhile jobs in their construction.
In the meantime, get writing to anyone who you think will listen to ask them what they are doing about giving homeless people shelter during this vile weather.
And keep the salt, and the newspapers that bang on about it, for your fish and chips.
I've waited in vain for anyone to mention how difficult this snowy and icy weather must be for homeless people. And waited. And waited, so it looks like I'll have to do it.
One of the problems of course is the differing definitions of "homeless". The Department of Communities, under the control of feisty Krankie-lookalike Hazel Blears, claims that there were only 483 people "sleeping rough" in the UK in June 2008.
Even if that were true, it is still 483 too many, and you can bet your sweet palookah that the figure will have gone up dramatically since that time, with jobs being axed left right and centre because of the credit crunch.
Shelter, the homeless charity, has a multiple definition of homelessness that also includes people living in overcrowded accommodation, people at risk of domestic violence etc., as you would expect.
Crisis, the charity that tries to help London's homeless, has a report which examines these issues as well, and comes to the conclusion that:
We suggest a range for the overall number of single homeless people of between 310,000 and 380,000.
This is a big jump from 483 rough sleepers, even allowing for the fact that one would expect this Government routinely to massage downwards any statistics that are likely to a) embarrass them and b) lead to them actually having to do something.
Maybe the true figure is somewhere in between.
I know I bang on a lot about treating the disease and not the symptoms - over a wide range of issues - because I see it everywhere I look. But in this case, if there is anyone sleeping rough these cold winter nights, we really do need to do both.
It is a scandal even if there are only 483 people sleeping rough this winter and we must do something to rescue them.
The long term issues of homelessness have their roots deep in the very fabric of how society is organised, in the loss of community responsibility, the break up of the family, and the failure of the authorities to ensure a continued and commensurate supply of affordable housing to cope with the demand.
I would like to see more use made of the large amounts of derelict land in the UK. If necessary, central government should “nationalise” or requisition brown field sites that meet certain criteria. They could acquire the land for a fair price to both sides.
They could then parcel it out into “settlements”. Each settlement is a cluster of a set number of eco-friendly, prefabricated, timber-framed kit buildings set around a central source of services, e.g. a small CHP plant, green space, etc, planned along the lines of those designed by the Walter Segal Trust.
The inhabitants of each settlement would then sign a covenant to stay for five years. The government provides the infrastructure and then the settlers provide the labour, as a co-operative, to build their own houses on the site. The houses are identikit, prefabricated. We built lots of "prefabs" after World War Two to repair the housing stock which had been destroyed by Nazi bombing raids, we need a similar effort now. There's nothing wrong with prefabs. I was born in one, but these would be eco-friendly "Uberprefabs" fit for the 21st century.
They then have a choice.
§ If they stay five years paying rent, they have the option to buy (?) but first the cost of the house itself gets charged to their account. But the rent they have paid to date counts as back-dated mortgage.
§ Or they can continue to rent until they decide to buy – at any time after five years.
If they buy, and later decide to sell, there are restrictive covenants on the kinds of people they can sell to, e.g. locals, young families, starters on the housing ladder, key workers, etc.
OK - even though it's now official Bolshy Party Policy (because I say so!) it's still a sketchy plan, and easy to pick holes in. It needs a lot of work. But I haven't seen anything better coming from the people whose job it actually is to sort this stuff out, and who seem to be claiming a lot of salary and expenses for so doing.
With the construction industry in the doldrums, and the government looking around for something to throw money at, now is the time to galvanise the affordable housing situation by starting on schemes such as this. OK, it's not perfect. But which would you rather have? - a patch of derelict land with a ragged collection of homeless rough sleepers huddled round a makeshift fire, desperately trying to keep warm, or the same patch of derelict ground with a small number of eco-friendly social housing units on it, adding to the general stock of affordable housing and providing worthwhile jobs in their construction.
In the meantime, get writing to anyone who you think will listen to ask them what they are doing about giving homeless people shelter during this vile weather.
And keep the salt, and the newspapers that bang on about it, for your fish and chips.
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