Why oh why are Labour picking a process fight over EVEL? Hattie sounds so out of touch.
Not as much as the Labourites picking a fight over Sunday trading hours. Do they really think the public will be in uproar if Tesco's Extra opens 9am-9pm on a Sunday, when they currently go to Tesco's Metro for their goods on a Sunday.
No, but they might well think that the engaged leftie who will be voting for the next Labour leader might be paying attention. Is this just about providing the candidates something to posture about ?
Slavish adherence to party policy, no matter how dishonest or disreputable, does you no favours.
Now you are just being stupid as well as objectionable. This is about what is possible, which is why it broadly has the support of the hunting lobby. A failed attempt at a complete repeal would be worse than doing nothing.
So you don't think that making private rentals less profitable would increase the supply of housing? Time to go back to school I think.
Eh? Making something less profitable reduces supply. Or certainly that was the view when I was at school.
Isn't that Max's goal here - to reduce the supply of let out homes. The existing housing stock, all else being equal does not change. Therefore the level of owner-occupiership must increase.
I'm not arguing the economics of the proposal here. I have no idea on either, but am merely arguing the logic...
Yes, but there are three flaws in that. The first is that rentals will rise to compensate for the increased costs being put on all suppliers, so the effect on profitability will be very limited. The second is that, if there is any effect on profitability, some marginal properties may be taken off the market altogether (neither rented out nor sold to Max's mates). The third is that raising the cost of rentals also raises the marginal cost-effectiveness of owner-occupying, so tenants doing their sums will find that it's worth their while paying more to buy a flat.
It's a game of whack-a-mole. There are too many people chasing too few homes. There is one way, and one way only, of dealing with the problem, which is to build more (or reduce the population, I guess!)
No. Markets are, and have always been rational. Landlords might like to offset their extra cost by raising rents, but in practice the market will laugh at them and the rents will stay the same or there may be some marginal increase.
The best way to increase supply of homes to buy is to unlock existing stock owned by buy-to-let leeches by making it unprofitable to "invest" in it.
Really... and all those people with casual jobs, and on benefit, or in their fifties with little equity, how do they buy these houses now they are not available to rent ? As was said earlier, its a nice bung for Mr & Mrs Middle Class, for the poor minimum wage earner, no so much.
There was a poster here called Boobajob who was continually whining about how tough it was to buy a house in a trendy and expensive part of London, because he couldn't be arsed to lower himself to commuting with ordinary people. He was another one to ignore.
You end up paying a lot for a season ticket to commute in from the home counties, as I do, so it's questionable how much more affordable it is.
And yet millions manage to do it. Unless I imagine all those passengers on trains trundling into Waterloo every morning.
Yes, it is an issue which doesn't affect Scotland, so in the unlikely event that the SNP are not hypocritical, they should abstain.
In fact, it's even better than that: the proposal is to bring the law in England & Wales in line with that in Scotland. It's not a complete repeal of the Hunting Act. So it's hard to see how the SNP could justify voting against: it might, therefore, pass.
The Conservatives have once again broken their manifesto promise on this issue, and this time they cannot dishonestly use the fact of coalition as an excuse. The manifesto promised (at p. 23) that:
A Conservative Government will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act [2004] on a free vote, with a government bill in government time.
What the government are in fact now proposing is a vote on subordinate legislation made under the said tyrannical Act of 2004, which by its very nature affirms the validity, continued enforcement and operation of the 2004 Act. The Conservative Party, as ever, will sacrifice individual liberty on the rocks of expediency.
Slavish adherence to party policy, no matter how dishonest or disreputable, does you no favours.
Now you are just being stupid as well as objectionable. This is about what is possible, which is why it broadly has the support of the hunting lobby. A failed attempt at a complete repeal would be worse than doing nothing.
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And with luck they still won't get it through :-)