The root of the problem is the sale of council housing. That policy
compelled the State to make gifts of significant capital assets to
people who were thus enabled to enter the property market ahead of
private tenants who had saved for their deposits. And, as part of
Thatcher’s invention of mass benefit dependency, it created the Housing
Benefit racket, which is vastly more expensive than the maintenance of a
stock of council housing.
I am a good Chestertonian in
this as in most, though not quite all, matters. I would dearly love
every household to have a base of real property from which to resist
both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State. But
within the practicalities of these things, there is also a very strong
case that each locality should have a base of real property from which
to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty
centre.
Already, under New Labour, the powers that be
apparently could not distinguish between the respectable working class
and the characters from Shameless. So council and housing
association tenants, whose rents will go up in April in line with the
September inflation figure even though pensions and benefits will not,
were to lose security of tenure in order that Shameless characters could be moved in next door to them, or even in place of them.
But
New Labour is no more, at least outside the Coalition. Those in that
actual or potential position should contact Ed Miliband without delay.
No comments:
Post a Comment