Less so, but almost certainly.
Plus, people just don't save. That's why most people rent. You could knock them all down to £50k and most mugs would still rather get a BMW on finance than save for a house.
Uncontrolled immigration doesn't help either, but you won't see many people prepared to acknowledge that.
Or it's just so glaringly obvious that it doesn't need stating?
More people = more demand. Who would've thought so!
The solution is to "build more houses", as if nobody had thought of that before.
Or to 'go back to your own country, shut the fackin' borders' which is equally original.
The podcast I listed previously goes into the demand argument and why there's not enough supply. Supply has never even matched demand when the government wasn't matching what private builders were building.
At least the terrorists are working on fixing the demand side.
Demand side:
- Concentration in the south east as the north is an economic backwater (sorry, but it is)
- 300,000 immigrants per year
Supply side:
- Government has to build low margin housing but doesn't have the money without cutting other things that people will also moan about
- Small island
- You can't just build over everything
Corbyn, from the safety of opposition, has granted 'government' apparent magical powers.
Are the left still vehemently opposed to building over the green belt?
'The left'
The greens tend to be so, yes.
Famous lefty. Do you think farmers in the South East all vote Green? Do you think everyone that watches Countryfile goes Labour? Conservationists aren't lefties, it probably spans the gamut of partisanship more than any other topic. But yes, please carry on trying to make a crass political point, you've been so spot on with your other pronouncements lately.
The problem with just building wherever is that they won't also upgrade infrastructure, particularly roads and schools, to accommodate the population increases.
Building high density is better than sprawl anyway.
Jezza appears to be nailing it again as 'Mrs May' turns what should have been a bread and butter visit into something akin to an SS officer checking on camp progress.
She really needs some (better) advisers.
It's 100% bollocks, in my opinion. I work with several landlords of commercial buildings and apartment blocks. Not one of them would outlay CapEx unless it improved their own yield or rental. They could not give a fuck what the neighbours thought of it as long as there were no issues and the rent was being paid.
There will never be 'enough' housing (where it is needed) because when there is an awful lot of people stand to lose an awful lot of money, and even Joseph Stalin's Labour Party recently kicked up a giant fucking stink about the prospect of wealthy homeowners having to pay for their own old age care, so don't expect that to change.
It's all about planning and perverse incentives towards under-using land (and the fact that you only get shit returns on every other kind of investment, but that won't be such an easy fix). You could build a million houses on something like three per cent of the London Green Belt, and anyone who has ever been on a train will know that five minutes out of any city station is all the land you could ever need; but between the landowners having no incentive to utilise what they have (land value tax mate), planning laws being a joke, and whatever else goes into it, nothing gets done.
It's the political own goal equivalent of that one where the guy smashes the ball in off his own face.
I'm sure the distraught woman resident was a dyed in the wool true blue Tory before today.
Jez has never been responsible for anything in his entire life, so it's easy to turn up and continue raging against the machine.
It'll be different in the third year of his premiership when we've introduced currency controls and the electricity supply only works from 10-6.
It struck me during those floods a while back that they shouldn't even turn up to these things. They're not helping, they're in the way, and who actually wants to see fucking Jeremy Corbyn when their house has just gone up?
The West Wing covers this (as it covers more or less any conceivable political leader scenario) when President Josiah Bartlet-Christ-Obama sneaks into some disaster relief centre in the middle of the night to help with the washing up, only for one of his aides (CJ I think) to appear and physically drag him away crying YOU ARE NO HELP HERE MISTER PRESIDENT.
The logic of it doesn't matter. It's perception. May looks like distant and aloof, and this is an age where we shove microphones in distressed people's faces because it's a human interest story and it'll be "moving" and "powerful".
There are calls from certain nutjobs that we should start requisitioning 'empty' houses in the area for them. Yeah, because that's not the type of thing the Soviets would get up to.
Don't know which is worse, Maybot or Corbyn blurting accusations before anyone knows what's occurred in an attempt to score political points.
shambles
Alia Al-Ghabbom, who lives on the estate and is helping her friend search for his missing niece Jessica Urbano, met Corbyn inside the church. She told BuzzFeed News: "I live in the block next door. I just said, 'Thank you for being here, it really means a lot to us,' he was really emotional.
I had just read the article as I saw the post and I thought the irony was too good to miss up. I'm with Jim Waterson on this, I don't particularly care it just looks terrible. Compounded by the fact that she almost lost an election due to coming across as a robot with no emotions. It's really easy politics.
If Theresa did the same thing as Jeremy is doing there, she'd be accused of all sorts of vile things.
In fairness to Corbyn, a deadly tower block fire in a poor corner of otherwise rich west London, packed with ethnic minority and immigrant tenants, and caused in all probability by some form of evil building owner/Tory council not having put the right checks in place - all just after an election in which he gained seats - is as close to his ideal political scenario as you could possibly get. He's never going to not cash in on such an opportunity.
While it leaves a bitter taste for politicians to talk about cuts etc so soon and as ugly as it sounds, it's the best way to get people to notice. I'm not saying they should do it, they should put politics to one side, but if people heard Corbyn mention the fire two months from now would they have the same response?
Time for anecdotal evidence of the cuts' harm... An ex-fireman who's a distant relative of mine said the fire brigade have long been saying a disaster is waiting to happen, because the cuts meant that buildings didn't have firemen inspecting them - but their own inspectors or the council's.
It's not inspectors or the council that manage a commercial building's fire risk. The RRFSO (Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005) states that a 'responsible person' shall be in charge to ensure the building's fire risk is assessed and managed by a suitably qualified person.
It used to be the fire brigade, but the above Order was issued over 10 yrs ago. Therefore, whenever you have an office building or a multi tenanted block of flats, the owner should have a designated person managing the fire risk. In my experience, this is not a high priority for them and in some circumstances, they are unaware that they have this responsibility. Which is very worrying.