For millions of the UK’s poorest people, the biggest weekly expense by far is the cost of buying someone much richer than them a house. Almost 4 million people now rent privately and many will live their entire lives without ever knowing what it is like to have a secure home. The gradual demolition of the social housing sector combined with buy-to-let vultures gobbling up low cost houses will only entrench this monstrous future.
No-one was ever asked whether this is a future anyone wants. Instead it is presented as inevitable – this is just something the free-market is doing to us that we have no control over. This is neo-liberal ideology at its most insidious. The only ones who benefit from the majority of the population living in insecure private rented housing are landlords and property investers. Therefore no alternative can even be imagined. It is a done deal and so the rich get richer and our lives get shitter.
This illusion is constantly re-enforced by those who benefit. Landlords will pull out of the market if tenants are given more rights they shrilly proclaim – as if buy-to-letters are all going to start paying their own mortages for a change. To back this up new laws are created, such as the ban on squatting in abandoned residential properties. If this law was removed then landlords leaving thousands of homes empty would almost certainly lead to the kind of squatting movement that was seen both after the second world war and in the 1970s when entire streets were squatted by homeless families. That is why no major political party opposed the squatting ban, the free-market must be protected with laws as well as lies.
The Labour Party is happy with this consensus. Ed Milliband talks about flimsy rights for private tenants, but never council houses for everyone that needs one. That even these wet proposals were met with howls of outrage from landlords reveal a private rented sector that is now out of control. Buy-to-let landlords even complain that the money they make from rents barely even allows them to make a decent profit, nimbly forgetting that they are not only also being bought a property, but that someone is paying them to live in it and look after it for them. These parasites seem to think that houses are free, probably because they are if you’re rich and immoral enough to convince a bank to give you a buy-to-let mortgage.
In truth nothing shows up the failure of the free-market run rampant then the private rental sector. Rents are now so high that the tax payer spends billions each year topping up the rent of even those in work via Housing Benefit. We are paying a fortune to keep landlords rich, whilst thousands still go homeless. The idea that a competitive market leads to the best for consumers is rendered laughable by the private rental sector. It is the customer, the tenant, who has to compete, jumping through endless hoops and shelling out a fortune just to get a roof over their heads. Landlords don’t increase profits by improving the service they offer, but by failing to carry out repairs, hiking rents and evicting anyone who complains. On some of the many internet forums devoted to landlords the contempt they hold for their tenants is staggeringly apparent, especially if they happen to rent to people on benefits. No other business would dare treat their customers this way.
Landlords discriminate at will. The vile No Blacks No Irish No Dogs of the past has been replaced with No DSS, which in practice means no lone parents, no disabled people, no unemployed people, or put more simply no-one poor. This is probably illegal, but no-one seems to care how landlords behave. A survey carried out by the government in 2010 found that almost half of private rental sector housing failed to meet the Decent Homes Standards. Many did not even meet the very minimum health and safety standards required for housing. Don’t expect the Government to do anything about this, they believe that ‘peer pressure’ is better than regulation to manage private sector landlords.
From shortly after the second world war up until 1980 millions of council houses were built in England, Scotland and Wales. The answer to the housing crisis is boringly obvious. But instead of low cost secure social housing we get offered hugely expensive ‘affordable rents’ that no-one can afford. The so-called Living Wage isn’t even enough to pay Affordable Rents in many parts of the UK where they can run as high as several hundred pounds a week. The situation would be laughable if it wasn’t such a fucking disgrace and didn’t cause such acute suffering.
And yet not one of the politicians who claims to represent us will even consider any alternative to this profit-crazed exploitation of our most basic human need – a safe, secure and genuinely affordable home. This is hardly surprising. Around a third of MPs are landlords themselves. They really are all fucking in it together.
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid
the void 
Reblogged this on The Projects of Michael Pugh and commented:
You ought to read this. I have previously written about this sort of thing myself here http://theprojectsofmichaelpugh.com/2013/11/07/private-landlords/ and here http://theprojectsofmichaelpugh.com/2014/02/17/a-little-more-dwp-stuff/ – Britain is a shitty pyramid scheme & if it isn’t fixed soon, I fear even darker times ahead.
Reblogged this on glynismillward189.
The future does indeed look bleak unless there is significant reform in the rental sector. As well as ‘no DSS,’ it is common to see landlords and letting agents specifying ‘no pets’ and, increasingly, ‘no children.’ It seems very much like a world where many landlords and letting agents feel entitled to take a significant percentage of tenants’ income each month whilst providing very little in return. Their attitude seems to be that they are ‘graciously’ providing a roof over tenants’ heads, so tenants should just put up and shut up!
… they do make the place look untidy (unruly children & ‘DSS’); they make so much noise all the time … & they lower the tone (conversely).
“Think of the (hardworking/grownup) neighbours … “
The reason we say “NO PETS” is because tenants won’t take their dogs for a walk and allow them to piss and shit in the house and chew the door frames etc., – Wot wouLd you do -??
That’s tarring everyone with the same brush. It sounds as if you were unlucky with your experiences of tenants.
434
stop moaning accept being a landlord is a job, that you rent out to human beings that want to have a life, have little or no housing security, do not want to live in a straight jackets under marshal law, are not extensions of your own personality and get on and do it…also lobby your mp to get on and build badly needed houses..which will obviously take the load off of your badly sagging shoulders…oh no, building more houses will drive rents down and lower property prices what a shame…
On the nose.
Reblogged this on Maxwell's Mostly Irrelevant Musings.
I really dont care any more, nothing is going to get better in this country now greed is God!
Moaning on a blog site has about as much teeth as my granny!
My thoughts exactly; the digitally couched are perfect at offering an opinion but a solution obviously not. Other than to type bad poetry in BOLD that is…
Who told you that airing our opinion on a blog is all we do? Where did you get that idea from? See that’s you projecting what you think on to other people.
For all you know there are loads of people on here who do a lot more than that. Anyway, what’s wrong with someone airing their grievances to draconian and cruel benefits legislation and implementation? If all it does is give someone like minded people to share with then that’s a win in itself.
There is a limit to what an ordinary citizen can do. All we have to fight against laws and the government legislation are our own voices and the voices of others, creating an avenue of protest where before there wasn’t one.
I work in a housing advice centre. Some of these “buy to rip off people” properties are a fucking disgrace. Riddled with damp and dry rot, the (usually immigrant) tenants dare not complain for fear of homelessness, whilst the selfish UKIP/Tory landlords rack up their bank balance courtesy of Housing benefit/zero hours exploitation. Short term tenancies, non returning of deposits, and failure to do any repairs is the norm. Some landlords you would never tire of punching.
This is totally one sided bollox! Not ALL private landlords are irresponsible and very few (despite IDS’s claims, have yachts in the South of France) Some of Us are willingly or unwittingly housing the Care in the Community people, i.e. seriously mentally ill people, who have no concept of right and wrong) i.e. have no idea how to look after themselves, can’t cope with responsibility for cleaning but can have 2/3/4/ dogs – in the house despite the tenancy agreement saying “No Pets” – can pay their Sky Subscription but can’t pay their rent top up (the rent’s capped here for a single person under 34yrs at £65 pw), with NO SUPPORT for ME and only punitive fsuuport or them if they say they need it, and none for them if they say they don’t want it.
WE, the private landlords, who care, are being driven to the point of bankrupt and being made destitute ourselves with NO SUPPORT whatsoever from anywhere and have less capital left than others are allowed whilst they claim benefits. Many “absent landlords” have bought these properties with legally hard earned money and pay rogue “local managing agents” to manage their properties (whilst hoping to have a meagre pension from their investment at the end of the day) And aside from the Agent’s fee, pay thousands a year in charges for repairs and maintenance, only to find that their properties have been allowed to disintegrate squalor…whilst the Agent was doing what???
We then have to pick up that tab for repairing the properties effectively, as well as paying 100% council tax once they’re empty- at the local councils discretion, when then tenant vacates with the keys, having trashed the property, whilst owing rent. Oh, and if they leave their “stuff” WE have to store it for 6 x months, at our expense. As a private landlord I have to uphold my end of tenancy agreement – or be prosecuted as threatened by Durham County Council, whilst there is no accountability whatsoever, on the part of the “mentally ill” – unable/unwilling to work “tenant” – How the fcuk does that work!!
I agree. We rented our house out whilst we lived on a holiday campsite where my wife was working as a chef.
We let it out to a young unemployed lady with a small child. She had no complaints and we helped her out loads by leaving furniture and white goods as she had nothing.
The house was newly decorated with no damp.
Just like me being called a lazy scrounger by the media and this unelected government because I am through a heart condition unable to work, it is unfair to tarnish all landlords with the same shitty brush.
And yes I know there are some bad landlords. I have lived in some right shit holes.
It sounds like it’s all getting a bit much … perhaps you should take a well-earned rest from all the pressures and stress & move in yourself to one of the “properties”?
In this area, there are very many multiple occupancy houses which have been relentlessly sub-sub-divided to maximise the potential profits that can be extracted from them. They’re let out year on year for the most part. Many now have their garages/garden sheds made into some kind of ‘flatlet’ with one single window and a door – a bit like the room that Alice found herself in @Wonderland.
At the same time, the quite large (in several cases) gardens of these MO houses are concreted over to become car parks for their (multiple) occupants – including if necessary old, established trees being taken down to allow the transformation. This clearly meets a demand within the area to some degree, but it’s also a huge money-spinner for those very few house-owners, some of whom can/do employ full-time handypersons to oversee their house(s). They have a clean-up once a year and perhaps re-paint occasionally etc. – but the rent they receive somehow seems to cover costs & they come and go mainly in landrovers or similar – fairly infrequently. They most certainly don’t live here themselves & in mostly don’t see too miserable/depressed when spotted … Any chaos ever caused by their tenants – whether knowingly or inadvertantly/thoughtlessly, is not, in the first instance, much of a headache for them – as it’d usually be more of a neighbour-from-along-the-street-situation.
God, don’t landlords ever stop whining about how hard done by they are. Strange thing is I’ve never met a poor landlord. Met lots of poor tenants buying them houses though, I’m one of them. If you don’t like it why not try getting a real job instead of sponging off the poor?
” don’t landlords ever stop whining ”
Modern Landlords are a bit like 1820’s farmers
The latter never had good weather, decent prices for their crops, and the source of their wealth, their skilled labourers, asked for wages that were ‘too high’
And the ‘poor rates’?
Far too out of control, because the wages paid, did not cover rent and food.
Their answer?
The Workhouse
When one side says one thing, and another the other, often there is truth in both sides. Yes, there are evil Rachman like landlords, certainly, but there are bad tenants as well. I may have Asperger’s syndrome but I can still to a point see other’s point of view.
Both sides need to improve; Landlords need to stop discriminating, and tenants should respect the rules and pay the rent. And the government should quit with it’s bedroom tax and Universal Credit crap which makes it harder for landlords to be paid. I obey the rules of the council house I live in-I don’t refuse to pay rent or keep pets or pee in the garden or knowingly play music that’s too loud. Some landlords are grasping, but equally, some tenants are very unpleasant.
You speak of ‘both sides’ as though landlord and tenant were on equal terms. In fact, there is the greatest possible imbalance of power between them, and that is the fundamental evil, not any specific behaviour on the part of one or the other. The landlord is wrong by virtue of being a landlord; the very relationship should be abolished.
we are hard done by lend us a few quid johnny.
what i really hate are some of these so called not for profit housing associations that for some reason charge double the market rent and then make out there doing everyone a favor.,
Bring back pre-fabs. But you are quite right. The policies are deliberate. On a par with monopolistic tactics. Shortage maximises profit.
Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs.
i have recently returned to devon after 35 years,im poor and rent through an agency i wwas homeless once so i dont complain but ive noticed that a lot of landlords bought houses for next to nowt under thatchers council house scheme and cause of the location made millions so now 10 or so families own nearly all the properties,i had to laugh when i heard that someone i knew who has been in jail for assault GBH attempted muder and much more is a landlord owns 10 properties he sold his council house from jail..funny old world
totallygivenup
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/right-to-buy-housing-shame-third-ex-council-1743338
Reblogged this on SMILING CARCASS'S TWO-PENNETH.
Reblogged this on UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR.
The best analysis i’ve read re private rentals. Many thanks for putting my thoughts into words!
Rent, whether public or private, is an oppressive, feudal institution in which the person who owns your home owns you, because what kind of life can you have without a home? Council housing, though preferable to private renting in some ways, gives the state control over your life — as witness those councils who are demanding that unemployed tenants do unpaid work; the eviction of relatives of rioters a few years ago; the proposed policy of throwing people out if their incomes rise too much; the rent increases; the bans on working from home or from keeping pets; all the other rules that governments and councils may impose on tenants — the whole ugly ‘No Ball Games’ mentality. I’ve lived in council housing and, to put it bluntly, they treat you like dirt.
Even in the golden age of council housing that people tell me about, when it was supposedly completely secure and for people of all classes, the state still had the power to change conditions whenever it liked.
I’m now in a private rental and have the disadvantages of that situation. So I think it’s unfortunate that Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme gave home ownership a bad name on the left. But universal home ownership, by whatever legal or financial mechanism, is what we should be campaigning for, not universal council housing. We should be able to own our homes for the sake of security and independence, not as an investment or a speculation: certainly not as a ‘buy-to-let’, which oppresses someone else. There’s nothing capitalistic about owning the roof over your head. Nor is there any inherent contradiction between home ownership and building more houses.
Working-class people would give their souls for a home of their own, but the left (including many middle-class people who just happen to own their homes) says ‘Shame! Council housing is good enough for you.’) Think again, people, please think again.
Only in the UK do the Left consider that owning your own house as a ‘sin’. In the former supposedly communist countries like the GDR, Romania, Yugoslavia etc people were encouraged to build their own homes. In the GDR the government even smoothed the way with access to building material, especially in the more rural areas.
If people provide their own housing it takes the pressure off the government and allows it to concentrate on the provision of housing for those who cannot, or do not want to provide themselves with a home.
The difference is in the approach; in the UK the Left considers housing, (for the ‘poor’, not ‘middle class them) real property, whilst in most of the former Soviet bloc countries housing was considered as personal property, rather like clothes etc.
Like Katherine above, we need to start thinking in terms, not of ownership, but of tenure.
Excellent comment.
I think you’ve completely missed the point of this piece which is very, very stark and obvious. I’m very left, but I don’t consider home ownership a “sin” (dirty religious word). I’d love to own my own home, and it would be exactly that, my home. Unfortunately in the UK it’s not so much about “Home ownership” as it is about “property ownership and investment”. Two totally different things born of two totally opposite mindsets. Johnny is clearly writing about the latter and the disadvantages it places on millions of people. I’d be all in favour of people finding ways for people to own their own home, but a culture change is needed to get people to see it as a home and not an investment. The neoliberal consensus that controls the status quo will do everything they can in their power to keep that at bay. If almost everyone could own their own home, there’d be no money to be made in being a landlord. And I’m fine with that. Like water, gas and electricity, I believe housing is a basic necessity in the modern world that should not be subject to free market profiteering, again this is what Johnny is talking about.
So while I agree with your general principle, I think you’re quite wrong in how you apply it politically.
Social housing, or perhaps I should have said socialised housing doesn’t have to be in the forms of the past, it could mean resident managed, even resident built, there’s all kinds of opportunities once profit is removed from the equation, With lifetime tenancies these would be more secure than paying a mortgage each month, and if there was a surplus instead of a desperate shortage then people would have a choice about where they lived and the ability to move. A surplus is possible, there are already more empty properties than there are homeless people.
Well said Johnny
Spot on, Katherine, it is all about security and tenure. If we look at the States, the same homestead was passed down through generations of the same family. But the big mistake they made was taking TITLE; this allowed the banks to take control.
I think Katherine was spot on also. I am not in favour of residents building their own homes, usually it is backed up with building materials provided by local government, who want labour on the cheap but to still charge rents for ever and a day, they also allow residents to come up with petty rules and regulations and those that do not comply will find themselves out on their ear.
There is already a private scheme such as this whereby if you are in the building trade or anything related to housing you can build your own home which will have a reduced mortgage to account for the work you do when building not just your own home, but homes for a full squad of people, no-one knows which house will be theirs until completion and a lucky dip to ensure there is no shoddy workmanship. The downside is work is to be done by those that are in work and have to give up free time to build after work and weekends which puts pressure on families, causing breakups.
Local government should be building the homes which should be for sale at cost price – no profit, the workforce may agree to working for a lower wage under these circumstances, providing building material prices are not hiked up to push house costs and final sale prices up.
No-one should own more than one house in my opinion and that should be the one they are living in. Hotels or house swaps could provide alternative accommodation if holidaying or working out of town.
I forgot to add that homes for sale after being council built should be paid for via rents back to council not mortgages from banks and should not accrue interest, in the same way that you can purchase a tv on a rental basis but after a certain length of time renting you have bought it.
Crapitalism.
landlords you cant expect any of us on hear to have any sympathy with you ..can you,lol,lol RENTING IN THIS COUNTRY IS A NIGHTMARE those of us who do have to rent are constantly moving ,do you have any concept of that ,the insecurity, the expense, the disruption whether you are a good tenant or not ,its a nightmare sorry but you have no right to whine and make out your all so hard done by ..WE ARE PAYING FOR YOUR HOUSE DO YOU UNDERSTAND so stop whinging if you cant take it go and get a job.
land value tax that would sone bring rents down.
or tax on empy buildings
Councils should be building houses and they have to scrap this idea that council properties can be bought by tenants. Council houses were built for people who couldn’t afford to buy so they should never have been sold in the first place. Mrs Thatcher made the council sell homes with a 40% discount. If a private landlord had to sell his houses with that kind of discount he would soon be bankrupt. Under council control we can expect the rents to stay reasonable. The way it’s going, the housing benefit bill will be astronomical with rents rising and people eventually retiring and needing help to pay the rent. We need council owned properties to house the poor and low paid that will stay forever under council ownership. Mrs Thatcher seemed to think that tenants of the council should have the right to buy but she didn’t want to give that right to tenants of private landlords for obvious reasons. She helped split up communities and the labour vote. She couldn’t allow councils to spend the millions in the bank as it would soon run out if you sell a house for 48k and you need 80k to replace it.
Interesting how all the socialists ideals suddenly squat in the free market space when home ownership is threatened.
The home ownership free market they defend from their mortgaged squats was a rigged market based on political deception and fraud.
voidseeker
i agree, there is always going to be an argument about who gets what… that is until and when needs of human being become paramount, an entirely different picture of housing emerges…the basic right to secure life tenure in a decently sized and located home…the image that is conjured up in my mind is a modestly sized wooden structure with enough green space around it, plenty of trees, no cars, a central hub where all services can be accessed, ample public transport and sheep and/or horses keeping the grass down…aka eco-villages, with even modular attached rooms, which can be added or removed to grow or shrink space according to occupancy needs, so no one has to move unless they really want to…with work share, food coops, food growing coops, etc etc……there is no doubt that we ought to be moving towards a low carbon socialist economy, as opposed to the type of low carbon economy that is on the rich list agenda, which will herald the ending of the welfare state and total dominance by the wealthfare state…which does mean by it, cramming people around industrial areas/sites, to ensure factory fodder for the rich and a green global playground just for their use ie smaller (condensed into small “carbon efficient space”) carbon footprint for millions, with us out of sight out of mind, and down the mines or whatever they choose our work or lives should be or become…if the government was a car would you buy it?
why not state owned? housing no longer bought or sold become homes, not commodities in a market place….all based on the principles of integral human sovereignty, the common weal….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees
I`ve been living in a housing association flat for the last 20 years, it`s the only stable home Iv`e had as an adult. Most of my life before then had been spent in homeless hostels, or private bedsits rented privately. Not one of these privately rented places were fit for purpose, they were badly maintained, some had no hot water, & one had a heater which i couldn`t use because the landlord wouldn`t repair it, & it belched out carbon monoxide. Private landlords are nothing but a bunch of crooks & perverts who fleece their tenant & even sexually harass them. I`d feel safer on the streets than living in their houses.
There are alternative socialist parties out there that would cap rents and help social tenants.
http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/why-left-unity-party-would-save-england.html
Also see the videos about TUSC on my personal website
http://www.theswansnewparty.org.uk
“Could Bradshaw’s Railway Handbook prove any relevant links to Rochdale children’s homes?”
Only time will tell as the the major political figures, the judges, senior police and other key figures try to sweep away the connections once again………………
Forget Rolf Harris, the bums will be twitching faster than those of their victims.
If two persons are capable of a whitewash in the Chilcott Inquiry, i imagine a paedophile ring at the centre of our government will find it easy to shred any evidence.
Forty thousand murders disguised within welfare reform still takes some beating………………..
The rats are beginning to scurry……………………
I think we might now know what JTP’s superfluous limb really referred to…
They’ve been doing that “No DHSS” for donkey’s years. I remember that often being the case 30+ years ago. Society is steered to discriminate by default, to divide and despise, someone to hate upon, look down on, categorize, marginalize and disenfranchise. I remember pub landlords that refused to serve me and kicked me out just for the way I looked, the length of my hair or the type of jacket I wore, etc. I digress. But it pisses me off still.
And to go even more *Off Topic* (Apol.) what’s all this about “Dutch-style collective megafund.” ? Have I got this wrong or are the fuckers privatising State Pensions now or what?
Do they provide better returns?
They can do. Their larger scale means their costs are lower. They are also able to invest in longer-term assets, such as transport projects or mortgages.
For accounting reasons, other pension schemes rely more on the bond markets, which are stable, but can provide lower returns.
But unlike a defined benefit scheme, these returns are not guaranteed. For example, in 2012, a quarter of the schemes in the Netherlands cut pensions by an average of 1.9%, to restore their finances.
What are the downsides?
The funds work by keeping back, or ‘smoothing’ investment returns from good years to make up for bad ones. This is similar to the way with-profits funds have worked and is subject to immensely complex calculations.
The danger here is that people are enticed in with promises of attractive returns, much like with-profits, only to be left with a shortfall in retirement when their projected incomes are cut.
Another problem is that responsibility for your savings are in the hands of insurers and actuaries responsible for investment choices and calculating how much you’re entitled to get in retirement.
Consumer confidence in insurers took a knock as a result of years of poor practice in the annuities industry and events like the Equitable Life scandal, so people may have good reason to be reticent to hand over responsibility for their pension before AND after retirement, particularly given there is always the risk of forecasting errors that affect payouts in retirement.
Finally, because the funds are shared by people of all ages, there is the possibility of inter-generational conflict. There have been grumblings in the Netherlands recently that savings from young workers are being used to subsidise the retirement incomes of the older generations.
In fact, people in the Netherlands have been calling for a move to a similar system to the UK, following a period of poor performance by CDCs.
Either way, savers of different ages have different priorities, so they may not always benefit from having their retirement pots lumped together. The same goes for the differences between the rich and poor, with lower earners effectively subsidising higher earners as they don’t live as long on average.
As a result of this, coupled with the investment smoothing, there is the potential for the running of CDC schemes and the outcomes they provide to be subject to political pressure.
…………………………….not so attractive as they would have us believe, then.
Thanks Geoff
“SOMEBODY HAS TO PAY FOR HS2”
“WHY NOT RIFLE THE UK PENSION FUNDS?”
JUNE 2012
The UK government late last year launched an investment scheme to expand the country’s network of motorways and rail tracks, a plan for which it hopes to attract £20bn in pension fund money.
Jammie Dodgers maker bought by Canadian pension fund
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan buys Burton’s Biscuits, which employs more than 2,000 people in the UK, for about £350m
Teachers’, Canada’s biggest single-profession pension fund with net assets of £77bn, has invested more than £4.3bn in the UK. Its British holdings also include Camelot, the National Lottery operator; Acorn, the special needs schools and fostering company; and stakes in Birmingham and Bristol airport and HS1, the high-speed rail link between London and the Channel tunnel.
In less than ten years, a handful of the country’s biggest funds have bought outright or own stakes in some of the UK’s most prized infrastructure. That includes High Speed One, the railway line that connects London to the Channel Tunnel; Scotia, Scotland’s biggest gas network; the ports of Southampton and Grimsby; Birmingham and Bristol airports and Camelot, the operator of the national lottery.
The news will yet again raise questions about the acquisition of British assets by foreign firms, not least because the National Lottery is committed to raising £750m towards the cost of staging the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. The deal needs to be cleared by the National Lottery Commission.
They’ve also been part of consortiums that have purchased engineering company Tomkins and, in May of this year, software maker Logica.
………………………………………..SELL SELL SELL, UNTIL WE HAVE NOTHING LEFT AND EVERYTHING IS OWNED BY FOREIGN CORPORATIONS.
(Just now…)
“My Government will continue to shaft you fucking peasant scum”
“A Bill will be introduced to strengthen the powers to prevent modem slavery and human trafficking whilst improving support for victims of such crimes.”
Unbelievably sickening hypocrisy.
Just unbelievable and at the same time as her government are making people slaves on WORKFARE and CWP and MWA!
The royal family have to go as well. They have no place in a modern society and are just a harkening back to the mists of time.
Time they were gone, with their palaces and crowns studded with diamonds while the poor starve.
voidseeker
OT … http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/29/scottish-no-campaign-nhs-ad-pulled-cinemas-great-ormond-street-hospital-complains
l p
they are really shafting us with the pension age escalator from 60 yrs old april 2010 on, millions of men (PGC evaporates with obvious consequences) and women will not get any chance of a state pension until 65 in 2018, if they are lucky enough to get there whilst shackled to jsa/esa until they reach 65 which is set to rise to 66….coz were all living longer!!?? over 60’s poverty has been soaring from april 2010 on, as income’s are slashed…billions of spending power are also being stripped from our local economy…it’s a national scandal but is rarely mentioned if at all in MSM…
They would work us to the grave…..but for the lack of real jobs!
“My Government will make it up as they go along, and write it on the back of a fag packet, changing the law to suit themselves, and you fuckers have no say in it”
“My government will break every law in the land and when brought to book by the courts will just bring in emergency legislation to change the law, overnight if that’s required”
And get away with renting cupboards for £170 a week in London because of no rent controls or stringent enough controls on what sort of space/facilities should be provided by default to make it actually liveable – http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/03/shoebox-studio-flat-london-renters-hours?commentpage=2
The government’s new flagship workfare scheme – community work placements – is in deep trouble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ohPvXaTBwWA watch that vile bastard ids squirm and run away !!!
One way to avoid the bedroom tax.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/shoebox-flat-housing-crisis-microcosm
Sign a petition against unaffordable rents and increasing house prices at “priced out”
signing petitions will not do shit some have over 20.000 names on them and still don’t make change!
You have a point. But “priced out” also has some good info. I wonder why there isn’t an e-petition on the subject as it affects so many people. And what is the alternative? Remain silent?
not having ago mate just telling it like it is sadly
I know. And a lot of these organisations you suspect are fronts – they are intended to be useless. But it doesn’t hurt to try. For what it’s worth:
We, the undersigned, call on Her Majesty’s Government to set a house price inflation target of zero percent and to pursue policies to achieve this including a programme of housebuilding, property tax reform, and providing rented housing that tenants aren’t desperate to escape.
Sign here: http://www.pricedout.org.uk/prices_petition?recruiter_id=6660
prayer
we all need decent housing and we have atm no alternative but to plead to the state landlords et al by default merit to provide it, aka the principles of deserving and undeserving working class poor…this situation has slowly and insidiously crept up on us’ since the 70’s….but as long as they can continue to use housing as a lever of power over our lives, to get us/force us to feed their ideals, nothing will ever happen or change, they’ll continue to believe in their sense of entitlement to keep things as they are…petitions are powerful in measuring strength of feeling, and empowering social movements..the primer movement (catalyst/spark for change) may not be powerful initially, but momentum builds as people realize they can individually and collectively change the way things currently are…
see alan bisset on indy scotland ref youtube who nails the #yesindy debate for me and the protest outside bbc glasgow hq on youtube, people are fired up….people who have never been politically active in their lives, are discovering talents for making powerfully creative speeches, as they know this their once in a life time chance of breaking through the current working class apathy, that we are culturally immersed in…shatter the oppression that has kept the working classes silent and at bay for many decades, whilst politicians live it large on the world stage, setting us up to provide their lavish lifestyles and USING us as de-facto stagehands….a scottish grassroots upsurge has returned sanity to scottish politics, and if you think about it also has the power to return it to british politics, as apathy deserts it….
Overburden – thanks for the u-tube references. It is a horrible situation we are now in and it is getting worse very quickly. If people can’t meet basic needs – decent paying work, or in default of that adequate welfare, and decent affordable housing. The market is unfairly rigged. The monied interests seem to have a stranglehold on the political process. As you say – people are just ignored. Their situation and their protests. I have the greatest respect for Void, and Mike Sivier, and Beastrabban, and Welfare Tales. They have a talent for homing in on the relevant issues and presenting them with total clarity. People are being pushed to the edge and over – it is deliberate and a betrayal, and I wish I knew the solution. But if not for the net we wouldn’t even have a voice. It is a war against everybody using divide and rule tactics. Against the disabled and ill, the elderly particularly women, against exploited migrants, against the working class and lower middle class, against the young. Our govt doesn’t represent the electorate. It’s a financial attack. And all our institutions are corrupted to some extent. Identifying the problem is one thing, but hell knows what the solution is. But we all need to talk, and listen, while we can. Regards, Clair
prayer
yep, speak out whilst we still can….
there are packed to the rafters yes to indy public meetings going on all over scotland every night of the week atm..people can see for themselves the invigorating passion….
Anyone who believes wee fat alex’s lies needs there heads seeing to.
fenriss
perhaps it is you who needs that diagnosis!
Why did Sun Tan Tommy leave the Scottish Socialist Party anyway ?
fenriss
who cares!
So its seventy years since the D Day landings and it is also acknowledged that up up four thousand allied troops died the day afterwards…………..
Yet these brave people have not gone unnoticed, the stunning cemeteries paying homage to the outstanding valour of those sent to fight by the cowards within westminster.
Strangely, over forty thousand people have lost their lives due to the evil, twisted policies of our Queen backed, welfare acts.
The government have managed to hide the true mortality rates of ten times more deaths than happened around the Normandy beach landings!
Imagine all those monuments and graves and then multiply it by ten……..
The only real difference is that the war finished all those years ago, but the cull of our people continues………..
Nobody is ever responsible, policies are working, yet foodbanks and deprivation, homelessness and destitution are none existent…………
Our monarch wants a rude awakening, poncing around in a new multi thousand pound carriage while her serfs are driven into the ground.
Even the old bastard in Spain has recognised that no cunt wants him, when will old wrinkly finally walk away?
“SO THERE WE HAVE IT”
“THE DWP AND IT’S PCS STORMTROOPERS HAVE DONE AWAY WITH TEN TIMES MORE THAN THOSE WHO PERISHED THE DAY AFTER D DAY”
geoff
many new millionaires and fortunes were made because of
ww2….fighting ww2 worked out well did it not? most thought it was for the common good to fight fascism and preserve democracy….in reality fighting ww2 destroyed the common weal, ie working class national and international bonds, scarred, and shattered the lives of millions, we were lied to then, we are lied to now…war is nothing to celebrate at all, commemorate maybe…see “the railway man”…war as a “growth industry” has been phenomenally successful, there have been 1000000’s….fighting war to gain the “peace” is as logical as the work programme to create jobs or the wca to create health, all they cause is misery for the masses and luxury for the phew…harry patch got it right, it is organised slaughter…the war on the poor, continues because huge “peace time” profits can be made…”where have all the flowers gone…”
overburdenddonkey
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/03/ready-nuclear-war-paul-craig-roberts/
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/
annos
that’s not the only scenario…but all scenario’s are evidence of arrogance, with ambitions of grandeur, global domination, subjugation, and empire building…welcome to the free world!
al capone said…”Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class”
p s annos
jim sillars re scottish indy @naefear said…”Obama wants to keep his poodle”…
From: G Ward
1 June 2014
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
With regards to my previous request which was answered Our Ref: VTR
2230, can the department please tell me as you have already stated
in above Our Ref: VTR2230 decision managers do in house training on
law and Atos train them in medical conditions so my next question
is;
1.What medical qualifications do Atos Trainers hold to train
Decision Managers as part of their medical training to make it
possible for decision managers to do their job.
Yours faithfully,
G Ward
Link to this
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/atos_qualifications_for_medical#incoming-523882
Reply
Stop Press:
Iain Duncan Smith will be on Question Time next Thursday 12th June.
“Recall – Disdain for the Public”
http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.de/2014/06/recall-disdain-for-public.html
annos
re-recall… https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/real-recall#petition
Wee Alex Salmon, Donald Trumps poodle.
fenriss
i bet trump, loves salmond’s present of that windfarm…
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First off the housing market and rentals are NOT in a free market as the government do pay housing benefits and they have “fixed” the Bank of England interest rates.
Now they have capped housing benefits so landlords charging £2000 a week won’t be scrounging that rent money. Which a is good thing.
If they let the interest go up, then overpriced mortgaged properties would start being repossessed and the house market would go into free-fall. Again a good thing as the rents would then become affordable. The biggest problem with high rents and housing costs is that the mass influx of foreigners coming since we joined the EU were sucking up priority housing from councils and housing associations leaving the english poorer working classes out in the cold and last on the list. And of course the private landlords (and a lot of housing associations) exploited this mercilessly.
Answer is obvious NO social housing to ANY foreigner irrespective of their plight. Refugees and Asylum seekers to temporarily housed in Northern Ireland to allow them to be heartily welcomed by the famous Irish hospitality … in particular Muslims.Before being repatriated to Brussels to deal with first priority given to ones without passports and ID papers.
The fair rents board to be re-established and housing benefits to be limited even further.
A housing survey counting immigrant residents and a plan to clear properties occupied by them and to relocate them to “more suitable” accommodation and a plan return them to the land of origin.
Rogue landlords could be dealt with be a special law that enables confiscation of unfit and overly exploitative properties. With again with special authority to bankrupt them and seize under the proceeds of crime law.
Arbeit – most of the millions of immigrants are economic migrants attracted by wages of several multiples of the wages in their own countries. But our wages were high to meet the high cost of living. If the economic migrants had had to pay private market rents many would have realised those “high” wages were an illusion. The policy of permitting migrants access to social housing I believe was deliberate to intice migrants to come as cheap labour and push wages down.
Well of course they are economic migrants…and that is why they either sleep in sheds, caravans, the streets, and social housing with about 15 or 20 of them in a house. Something akin to the Romanians on the tv programme “Benefits Street”
Unfortunately for the British there is no land of milk and honey for us to go.. where a Dustman gets paid 10 times what a Doctor does back home. And a magic place where you are treated to red carpet priority, free priority healthcare (at the expense of generations of native payers) and allowed to send child benefits back home that is several times what you were earning when you lived there … and there is little checks on whether these children even exist. Allah will provide.
Consider this our minimum wage is… £6.31 per hour apparently… not that they necessarily get paid that …yet the AVERAGE wage in Bulgaria is 80p per hour. I’m surprised that Cameron hasn’t got rid of the minimum wage law … but I expect that will come when they get back in.
If you don’t want this country to become a third world Victorian values new England full of mulatto drone for the rich, they will expect you to be grateful to become a servant once again….. then it’s time to take the country back… First by getting out of Europe.
I get fed up with the constant drum banging about the “noble migrant” and the “workshy Brits”. As you say, no-one is offering the indigenous population several multiples of their low wages. The migrants are moving away from exploitation wages, unfortunately in the process they are diminishing ours – which was the intention. Higher rents and lower wages and a disposable workforce. In the early 1970s when the common market was established and I was paying my way through university, I applied for work in several Northern European countries – Germany, Holland, etc whose wages were much much higher than the low wages here. I received polite letters back rejecting my applications saying although I had the right to work anywhere in Europe, local laws prevented them from giving employment to a foreigner when there was a local available to do the work. Meanwhile anyone from Europe and the Commonwealth could come here and work without any restrictions. Our politicians knew what they were doing and it was no accident. Both Labour and Conservatives maintained that situation.
yes … Noble migrant .. what a joke!
Who wouldn’t be glad to clean toilets on £80 an hour.
Centuries of feudal and then industrial revolution exploitation and servitude.. that’s why they never had any African slave workers in England (apart from the odd novelty display show case ones the odd toff kept a bit like having a pet giraffe today) as they had already an effective slave work force in the serfs and factory workers that were already bred for servitude.
Doesn’t it make you sick when these fuckers waffle on about “reparations” and naming token bridges in the name of some black boy slave who jumped off the boat in Jamaica …yet nothing for generations of factory workers or miners that died young keeping these exploiters living like kings.
Remember the thread about Jamie fucking Oliver praising up Polish workers…. did the fucker ever set a restaurant over there? guess what .. no he didn’t …. to “busy” allowing mice droppings and out of date pie and chips at £100 a time in his “high class” eating establishments.
When scientists and architects give up their jobs in Poland to become washer uppers in Britain then you know that something is fishy. Truth is the wage differential in Poland was so out of kilter with the UK then it made sense. Of course so were relative rents and house prices when they got here were equally disproportionate. Hence why they worked every available hour they could, saved up bought houses and properties back home and retired back home early and by as we’ve said earlier living with 10 or 20 in a flat or rented house.
However it has become a free-for-all psychopathic migrants to exploit too, with from Sharia law to sex slaves from the Balkans. Gipsy slave gangs also.
Racism is their trump call and that is why nothing is ever done about it. No one ever really arrest these bastards probably because they remind them of themselves. Kind of makes Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris both look like saints.
With the Ukraine now trying to become a member of the EU then this will come again even more.
Mechanisation and mass production relieved many people more of miserly pay but to the dole queue and welfare state and now the owners of factories that can theoretically run without hardly any workers at all just keep the profits in tax havens without ever putting anything back in. Resentment builds because the workers that are left essentially end up paying the tax bill that the free machine workforce doesn’t and the tax that is actually set to be paid is in havens or tax fiddles that are excused as legal tax avoidance.
Machine tax has never been mentioned. Some things do need human work and wog labour or scab labour depending on your viewpoint fills that gap. The EU has a ready of wog and scabs to do this and some of them will return home with the money but not before they have left their rubbish and bad influences to soil the country that was built up in reality on the labours of the British people that lived here during the feudal and industrial revolutions rich people “owners”.
Any fool could be a landlord for example as long they had the initial outlay to buy a first property to rent out. Then it’s a simply more or less a question of asking rents in excess of what the mortgage would be to buy more. It doesn’t take a degree in maths or science to work that out.
I have a solution … buy cheap properties in Poland – Bulgaria etc .. and do the same to returning foreigners but I’m sure maybe they will the sense to stop you doing that.
Arbeit – the ruling elite have just one trick, but they’ve mastered it – and that is setting up situations to keep everybody else at each other’s throats. With the grammar schools as many lower class students as children of the elite were getting into top Universities, so the gold standard school, going back hundreds of years vanished as if overnight. In the 80s the birthrate fell below replacement – someone realised that would mean higher wages and lower rents in future, also post war working class women were able to get jobs with pay they could live on, and get an education to compete with their betters, instead of being forced into prostitution to survive, then suddenly we have open borders and mass migration. To make sure we can’t complain a massive anti-racism campaign is born and because the Brits are tolerant they turn London into the terrorist capital of Europe, open doors to the most bigoted people on the planet. Migrants are a stick to beat us with. But stupidity and ignorance is the elites greatest ally. People are so entranced with the puppets they fail to look for the hand beneath. We are not each other’s enemy. We all have only one enemy. Europe could well be their undoing. People in Europe are uniting in a way the architects of the EU don’t want. In recognition that we are all quite happy to tolerate each other’s differences, but there is one group who are a menace to us all.
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