Theresa May's Conservatives
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour
Tim Farron's Liberal Democrats
Paul Nuttall's UKIP
2 people's Greens
Nicholas Durgeon's Scottish Nationalists
Satan's Sinn Fein
Dr Ian Paisley's DUP
Some other bunch of nonces
I'm foreign, but I wish I were an Englishman
I will add I'm not a full on left mental. I'd vote Tory if their policies matched where I'd like to see this country headed. Its just over the past 8 years, they've been utterly fucking disgusting. Labour, throughout history, haven't been much better, but I'd rather the chance to see change, or something different rather than 'better the devil you know' which many seem happy to run with currently.
The dole machinery is idiotic (I got sanctioned by them and was told to sue the Department for Work and Pensions), but the 'have nots' in that tower were probably receiving more in housing benefit alone than a lot of people do in wages, so it's not that straight-forward.
With all respect, there's no prejudice in recognising that the state couldn't trust some people to adequately manage their finances where it involved (a) direct responsibility for financing currently free public services and (b) most importantly, doing so for dependents.
If everybody could be trusted, we wouldn't have kids being taken into care, general absenteeism from some (some being the operative word) parents, chasing absent fathers for child support payments etc.
Now, if the issue is therefore quibbling over how far "some" extends, that's a waste of time as nobody could say. What you can say is that any such examples would raise serious questions about the integrity of such a system and it would be unlikely to stand up to sustained scrutiny as a result.
In comparison to the area, they probably weren't. In comparison to the North, they probably were, yes. Move the poor up North, keep London as a rich playground.Originally Posted by Lewis
The system doesn't stand up now. You can't trust everyone as we're not autonomous, obviously. I get what you're trying to say but check how you come across sometimes. There's no point in continuing a debate that's only gonna stay circular, as I've stated, I don't have the answers.
We can't keep heading down what we are now re: welfare, its abhorrent.
This may be an ideological difference, then, in the sense that my view is that welfare payments must also be fair to the people who are paying for it. If you're in a situation where the worker only earns a negligible amount above unemployment benefit, the system won't have credibility and thus won't be sustainable. I think there also has to be a recognition that it will, inevitably, be somewhat scientific in its management because it's effectively a massive HR operation.
One distinction that should be clear is disability benefit. I thought the PIP reforms ill-considered, and that's being generous. Your posts suggest I've equated all benefit claimants, which is not the case.
They don't have to be bussed up North, but there is no reason that the state should house people in amongst the most expensive real estate on the planet just because their parents lived there (oddly enough the people who usually make this argument are usually those most welcoming to people moving across the globe for work). You have to factor things like that into your theory about newspapers 'run[ning] with the anti-benefit scum vitriol that whips the working man into a frenzy'.
I'm off out having a pint on the taxpayer's money, lads. Its been emotional.
My main paid job is as a debt advisor and while there are idiots, I'd say among the best people at budgeting are among the poorest, and especially those on benefits. They have to be, a lot of the time.
I just want to reply to this point with a quote from elsewhere from someone who lives in that area (rllmuk). I know nothing of the structure and history around London, I've never even visited so for me to offer a personal view would be ignorance. This quote is touching on what you're saying, however (it comes across as a tad aggressive due to the nature that thread was going in due to tedious trolling fucks):
So poorer people should move, or be moved, because their housing benefit is higher than elsewhere in the country?Notting Hill was a fucking slum 30/40 years ago, and was pounced upon by the rich as some sort of patronising "ooh, isn't their funny culture and smelly food fun" exercise in poverty fetishisation. So how fucking DARE anyone say that the poor don't deserve to live there. The poor are the people who built the fucking place. They suffered through Rachman in the 50's and 60's. They've worked for a hundred years on the market that has been over taken by cheap tourist shit because some rich prick decided to make a stupid film about the place and only show a black face in the background for 5 minutes.
The newly arrived immigrants deserve to be there more than the rich fuckers who have come along, taken our lives and our culture and then tried to sell it back to us. That area is built on immigration. When every other fucking rental house in London had signs in the windows saying "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs", Notting Hill was one of the only places that would give them a home.
A follow up point from the same topic:
This a hundred times. I mean, what do you do when an area changes? I live in council housing in West Kensington which, in the late 80s and early 90s, was not particularly desirable. Now it is thanks to the wealthy being displaced from south Fulham and Chelsea by the even more obscenely rich, should we all be shipped out to zone 6? What about somewhere like Hackney, which again was far from desirable in the 90s but is now very popular with young white people with beards - should every council tenant now be deported out of the capital? Do we just exist at the whim of fucking estate agents and the goddamn 'market'?
What people need to understand is that those of us who find ourselves living in these suddenly-popular areas don't want to live here because the postcode gives us some sort of prestige - it's because it's where we're from, where our history is, where our communities are (remember communities? Governments love to go on about them but how does a community get built when the population is made up of insecure private-renters who could be moved on in 6 months?) and the families we support - for instance I'd have a hard time helping support my disabled mother if I lived in Preston as opposed to ten minutes up the road.
There should be no 'rich areas' where the poor are not welcome - everywhere in London should have a sound mix of people on all sorts of incomes, and those on the lowest incomes should not be made to live in shit, dangerous conditions. Not in a country as rich as this.
Yes.
Wonderful stuff.
The lack of "community" makes things a lot more like America. Which is probably what they want - atomised, disoriented and transferable units of production and consumption.
'Community' sounds horrible, and I for one can't think of anything worse. Imagine people going around to each other's houses to do things for each other, just out of common human decency? People looking out for each other and feeling a sense of belonging for their area, and possibly wanting to help sort shit out in the local community because they have a sense of investment in it?
It makes me shudder just to think of it.
There'd be need no need for accountants if there's no money transferred, so GS probably hates that kind of thing on principle.
Big Society mate.
Didn't you end up in Leeds via Oxford and Sheffield? Did moving each time make you forget who you are and make you want to do any of that shite less? I'm sure most people would like to live in the more expensive parts of London, but they can't afford to, so they don't.
As someone who could afford to live in the most affluent parts of London. Nah.
Yeah it did. In Oxford I didn't feel any sense of investment in the local area whatsoever, and that's despite doing outreach work and getting exposing myself to various issues for my job, because I knew I wouldn't stay there. I mean I did do stuff, but not as much. In Sheffield I did as I grew up there, and in my area of Leeds I do because I plan on staying there. If I was planning on leaving Leeds in a few months (or felt that I would be forced to) then I doubt I'd be as bothered either.
That's your problem then.
Erm, ok. The point is that people are more invested in their local community if they have actual, consistent ties to it, and are less likely to give a shit about it if it's just where they've been dumped or if they feel they're likely to move on at some point.
That's the point I was making. I think that this is really basic, immediately relatable stuff to anyone who isn't a complete misanthrope.
Which is great, but the state has to house people, not ensure that they have good neighbours for odd jobs and sugar emergencies. If they want to do that they can. If they don't then oh well.
Except there are houses there, so I'm not sure what your hypothetical point is. If its over the surviviors of Grenfell being offered housing in Preston, its at a time when those people need that local support of family and friends, so its heartless as fuck and a cunt move. If its that people who already live in that area, but get more in housing benefit than someone in Hull so they should fuck off as its a rich man's area now, then give your head a wobble. There's people in central Manc who would get more in housing benefit than I would in Bury, I'm not wishing for them to be moved and re-homed due to it, why the fuck should I care?
"Sorry Lewis, we've discovered that Hull has no available housing for us to house you locally, but there's a cracking one bedroom flat in Southampton we will put you in!"
"But then how can I go to the cinema with my mum"
EDIT: Removed last point as it makes me look more of a cunt than I am.
You can't ensure it anyway. What you can do is consider the psychological - and ultimately social - impact of completely disregarding people's dignity.
I think DS summed up the sense of disillusionment well. He complains about it on here, thaough other people will channel that anger and malaise in other ways. Once they do that in antisocial ways it absolutely needs curbing but I don't think 'they're scum' is a satisfactory explanation of the people who do boil over completely and I think it'd be prudent to consider the kinds of things that lead to that kind of anger developing in the first place.
If you're working and renting in Central Manchester, then you are liable to be forced to look elsewhere if your rent increases. People move around. Expecting to be put up in the most expensive part of the country on the tax-payers' tab because community is a daft argument, and seemingly not applicable to any other product.
But again, that's not the point. Its about people who already live there. Nobody is arguing here that young Dave from Stoke is asking to be put up in Kensington and should be allowed to. If you're homeless, or about to be, the council offer you a place, regardless of where it is, and if you don't take it, you're fucked. As an example my cousin, who is long term signed off due to mental health issues. His mother couldn't handle his problems anymore, so she told him he had to leave. The council offered to rehouse him, not in Bury but the outskirts of Preston (seems to be a common theme due to it being a monumental shithole). He would've rather had stayed here due to the support network of family and friends, but he took it as he had no other choice. The immigrants who were in that block wouldn't have asked to be there, they'd have been put there by the Council (the horror!) due to there being a local community of people of the same background.
If you're born in Kensington, and want to move out of the family place, but nowhere in Kensington is available for you, then you're not living in Kensington. You might be in a neighbouring borough, which considering transport there is easily accessible to some extent, isn't a major issue. If you had a job in Central Manc, worked there, privately rented but due to the cost of the property you rent being put up, you wouldn't just quit your job and move to Dundee, you'd find somewhere which may add 20 minutes to your journey, but kept you local enough.
You seem to have this opinion that because you can't, or even won't work, you should accept a place wherever the fuck its offered, even if its the other side of the country. Which is just madness, really.
Why do you reckon the state has to house people, exactly? Is it a moral thing or what?
Edit: Directed at Lewis. I'm genuinely curious.
Its because if workshy cunts were left homeless, there'd be a crisis innit.
Hypothetical:
Someone's mam is disabled. She relies on their car to help get her to the shops, their visits to keep her spirits up, but they're not listed as a carer and live separate from their mam. Government sells off the property they've been housed in, say its in Kent. They offer to rehouse them in Castleford. They should just go 'alright then man, sounds good to me'?
EDIT: added clarity.
I guess it just comes down to how you view people should be treated I suppose, the cold statistical approach, or the humane, person to person approach.
I don't think it's a moral thing or a 'right', but if people pay taxes then they ought to expect something back.
The renter in Manchester (and possibly the person moving out of the Kensington family home) isn't dependent on the state for their accommodation. By all means keep people as local as possible, but the realities of London are that that might not be possible without spending far more money than ought to be justifiable.
Their kids could take them in, or even just help them out, until somewhere more local and affordable came up.
I'm curious in Lewis' stance. He acknowledged further up that there's an obligation to house people, but strangely thinks no fucks should be given about where to house them. Even from a strictly financial standpoint, I'd say it's on shaky ground in the long run once you consider the impact on the people involved of that kind of treatment.
That's without any concern for any sentimental BULLSHIT about some things being worth considering simply because they cause less suffering.
So yeah, I'm curious to hear how that works.
What if the state took a 'cold statistical approach', because all it has are cold statistics, and left the 'humane, person to person approach' to actual persons? That works for me.
That's taking into account the kids have the space, there isn't a rift in the family, they themselves aren't in council housing etc. Its not cut and dry.
I'll bow out here as its obvious we have clearly conflicting views, as me and GS always will, and I've enjoyed the discussion, and so far I've managed to keep my opinion on foreign billionaires snapping up property left right and centre and keeping it unoccupied for years. Some for 10-15 years, because there's fuck all I can do but rant as the Government (both Labour and Tory) allowed it to happen, along with any old cunt with a bit of cash being able to snap up any property they want and can afford and pushing the rent up to insane, insane prices, then complain there's not enough space for those who aren't well off.
EDIT: My spelling is a mess today, its too warm and the lagers done its job.
Isn't this just a symptom of the deeper problem, which is what's happened to London in the past 10-20 years? DS' quotes alluded to it as well.
In general I agree with Hammer and DS, but I see Lewis' point in the sense that financially London is just insane and seems to fall outside any normal rules logic.
It's one of those things. Housing prices are insane because they let them (or encouraged them) to become insane. So now it costs a fortune to house people. Well, maybe we should have kept housing prices under control in the first place. As is, real estate is one of the most profitable investments out there, so people are making a fortune out of it, in many cases at the government's expense, while poor people need to constantly move to shitter and shitter areas because any area that is not a shithole is prohibitively expensive. Of course, moving to a shitter area will only make it more likely that you become even poorer. And so it goes. That's the 'free market' for you right there.
And then you (or people in general) manage to do something about the shitter areas to make them slightly less shit, and then other people become interested and jump on the bandwagon and all kinds of stuff comes into your area and all of a sudden it's quite an nice area and house prices are soaring and you need to sling your hook again because your rent is too expensive.
That's what happens if you're a private renter as well. If prices go up, you have to move.
Why should it be different when it's public money?
I think one way of solving this is for everybody to have to die in the house they were born in, with no movement in any direction in case somebody loses out.
I was born in a hospital, oddly enough, but where better to facilitate a rampant morphine addiction.
Artificially restricting prices on what is typically either the only (or the largest) asset for the bottom two thirds of the economy?
Yes. Housing should be a right of every citizen, not an 'asset.'
As for 'artificially,' lol.
I didn't make a distinction between public and private money in that post. I was just commenting on gentrification, which obviously applies to all of it.
London/Kensington probably does stretch it to breaking point though, with it being such an extreme example. I get that.
I doubt many would disagree.
However, there needs to be a recognition that house prices in certain areas will change and social housing needs to respond to that. There isn't a compelling case that you should be housed in a particular area simply because you want to be.
There are plenty of people who are "priced out" of areas they grew up in or where they want to live, but because it's the private market (rent or mortgage), it's just tough shit and they have to go elsewhere.
So a 'right', yes. But not an unrestricted right to live where you want, irrespective of other considerations.
If you think people should be able to do that, then the next logical step is to support unrestricted government subsidies to private landlords / banks so everybody gets to live where they want.
Yeah but as DS said, there's a huge difference between having to move 20 minutes away because your rent went up and being uprooted halfway across the country.
Or maybe a form of social housing owned by local councils. Don't know what you'd call such a scheme, mind.
How about we stop oligarchs and the like from buying up shitloads of property and leaving it empty?
People move for jobs all the time, so they can support themselves. This isn't different, in my view. There should be an aim of housing people close to a particular area, of course, but not at any expense and not if there is availability elsewhere while people are on a waiting list.
Again, this is something where you're left to it if you're in the private market, and you need to make a choice. You can't have a situation where people renting in the private sector and wanting to live in a particular area would be better off going onto housing benefit so the state subsidise without restriction what they couldn't afford themselves. As before, the system must be fair to the people whose taxes actually pay for it.
Except that isn't the case: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessrevie...ential-market/
Lol.
The number of people with jobs on housing benefit at this point in time is 982 thousand. That's around 1/30th of the entire working population.
edit: Whoops that factoid was from 2014. In 2017, we're at around 1.2 million on housing benefit in full employment or 3.75% of the work force.
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