Comments on: Labour must be more ambitious on building council housing

By: Dave Roberts

Dave Roberts — Wed, 29 May 2019 09:36:36 +0000

You are of course totally correct WG. ALMOs where the council handed control of its housing stock to variously named private organisations that had ” Community” in the title was privitisation by another name and method. In East London we now have Tower Hamlets Community Housing which is in effect private with no tenant input at all apart from the occasional “consultation” which is totally ignored as the officials on whacking great salaries decide everything in the deals they do with private investors.
This all started under Blair and would continue under Corbyn, not that he’s ever going to be elected as PM. What about one of the sensible article from Abbas Uddin up here editors? That guy has actually run something, Tower Hamlets Council and ran it well.

By: wg

wg — Wed, 29 May 2019 07:51:31 +0000

@Ken Patterson – it was a Labour government that offloaded council estates to private enterprises: they did so under the advice of the Fabians, who had produced a document “A Transfer of Affections”.

My belief was that the strategy was to separate the Labour Party from its responsibility to house our own people – how possibly could the Labour Party justify giving houses to the incoming hordes whilst our own people were sleeping on the pavements?

The answer was to offload council estates and distance themselves from any housing issues that resulted from Labour’s immigration policies.

Of course, now we are all to be grateful for the Labour Party coming out and fighting for council housing.

By: Dave Roberts

Dave Roberts — Wed, 29 May 2019 01:17:17 +0000

Ken Patterson. We won’t need immigration if we train the people we need as is laid out in http://www.helalabbas.com in the article The Campaign for Real Education.

By: Ken Patterson

Ken Patterson — Wed, 29 May 2019 00:45:58 +0000

It is true that the Blair government did not build many council houses but this does not mean they did not invest in housing. In 1997 the incoming Labour Government was left with a council housing stock that was in very poor condition after the the years of Thatcher’s misrule. They made a decision to bring the existing stock up to a decent standard, rather than invest in new houses.
With hindsight, in 2019, this may well seem to be a mistake but in 1997 the country did not have such a lack of housing and we did have council houses which were a disgrace. Labour brought essentially all council houses up to a reasonable standard by 2007, a big success. The trouble is that since 2010 the Tories and their LibDem friends have sold lots more council houses (to themselves, most Tory MPs own multiple houses) and built virtually none. They are now threatening to sell off housing association houses.
Fanatical Tory privatisation dogma is the problem. This campaign is well worth supporting.
Oh – and we will need lots of immigration to build the houses as the Tories have also wrecked so much of our vocational training for builders, electricians, plasterers etc.

By: Lee Rigby Forever

Lee Rigby Forever — Tue, 28 May 2019 20:52:14 +0000

Not one mention of our troops. What a surprise…

By: Steve Gerrard

Steve Gerrard — Tue, 28 May 2019 20:43:01 +0000

This issue definitely shouldn’t be allowed to slip down the political agenda.

By: Wolfgang Kuchler

Wolfgang Kuchler — Tue, 28 May 2019 18:47:33 +0000

A good policy and article, and clearly much needed. As the comments show we have been brainwashed into thinking this – the lack of council housing – is inevitable or something we have to put up with. So people would rather tell themselves stories (net migration is actually 283,000 this year and most immigrants live in – bad – private rented accommodation – https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/25/is-immigration-causing-the-uk-housing-crisis )

David Michael’s first point I get, Labour helped create the problem so it will take a lot of effort to convince people things will be different but as to the money, we are a rich country, and part of any convincing platform for Corbyn has to be not just about taxing the very rich, but saying that so called “middle class” people who have several holidays and eat out etc, can be called upon to make a bit of sacrifice.

By: Dave Roberts

Dave Roberts — Tue, 28 May 2019 12:55:12 +0000

I keep referring to this site http://www.helalabbas.com but this forum never references it. Look at the article “Small is Beautiful” and post it here instead of the self defeating whinging whining articles like this from a nobody.

By: David Michael Webb

David Michael Webb — Tue, 28 May 2019 12:34:05 +0000

LMAO…on what planet are you living? Labour are NEVER going to get into power. We are currently in the grip of the worst government in living memory, a worse than useless lame PM, and a bunch of clueless MP’s yet, your party is lagging so far down in the polls even the dead duck Lib Dems are doing better. In Scotland you are down to single figure support. No matter what you promise, no one will believe you, and where are you getting this money to build all these homes? You had 10 years in power but did nothing except burden us all with PPI bills.

By: Tom Sacold

Tom Sacold — Tue, 28 May 2019 09:58:57 +0000

Immigration is running at 600,000 a year. That’s the size of a small city.

We need to deal with the root cause of the housing problem first !!!