Left Foot Forward
Coalition’s housing plans will disincentivise aspiration
There is a sound argument to try to support greater mobility in social housing - only five per cent of social tenants moved home over the past year compared to almost a quarter of tenants in the private sector, though it is unclear what an ‘optimal’ level would be. It is also important to emphasise that it is councils and housing associations that will decide the length of tenancies, so the key question is how they will use their new freedoms.
Taking the axe to social housing
The government’s consultation “A fairer future for social housing” says that “social housing – affordable and stable – should act as a springboard to help individuals make a better life for themselves”. Yet the result of this announcement will do the exact opposite – it will ensnare individuals in poverty, create ghettos of deprivation, and prevent future generations getting access to proper affordable housing.
BNP bloggers whip up anti-Muslim sentiment
There are increasing signs that the BNP are resorting to more and more desperate measures to inflate what little influence they have. Lisa Nandy MP reports in the Tribune on the work of a small group of anonymous online bloggers who have gone to extraordinary lengths to whip up anti-Muslim feeling.
Vaizey’s net neutrality knock-out
Something has to be done about the country's digital infrastructure. It is the good that the government recognises this, but like the Labour administration before it, the Lib/Con coalition repeatedly fails to grasp what needs to be done and how to do it.
Look Left – Cameron adviser resigns after “disgraceful” remarks
David Cameron's enterprise adviser Lord Young resigned today after saying people were better off after the recession. Young had told the Telegraph: "For the vast majority of people in the country today, they have never had it so good ever since this recession – this so-called recession – started." Labour leader Ed Miliband described the remarks as "disgraceful" and said people would feel "insulted" by his comments.
Police terror boss only half right in remarks about EDL
Islamist terrorism predates the EDL by many years. Osama bin Laden published his justification for the indiscriminate killing of Americans and Jews everywhere in February 1998 and the ‘secret apparatus’ of the Muslim Brotherhood is believed to have assassinated Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha, then prime minister of Egypt, as long ago as 1948.