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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Will Osborne’s Help To Buy help buy votes?
George Osborne is said to have quipped at a Cabinet meeting earlier this year ‘hopefully we will get a little housing boom and everyone will be happy as property values go up.’ Like Gordon Brown before him, Osborne is political to his fingertips and his dual role as general election co-ordinator explicitly reflected that.
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Nope, that was Pathfinder. Labour's answer to the housing problem, now quietly buried and ignored by everyone in the party.
Best for "helping people onto the housing ladder":
Con: 35
Lab: 24
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pmqstq2ke0/YouGov_Times_Results_131009.pdf
FPT: Writing question: does 'angry angiosperms' sound terrible? I'm going to cut or replace a line about nasty plants. I was after 'killer [something]', but angiosperms sounds (to me, anyway) more amusing.
On-topic: I suspect it will be an electoral boost to the blues.
......So far, over 40,000 houses have been refurbished....... However, more homes have been demolished than built and without longer term support, demolition sites, rather than refurbished and improved housing stock, may be the Programme’s legacy."
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmpubacc/106/106.pdf
£1.2 billion on demolishing more houses than it built.......
The boiler replacement programmes are low hanging fruit for the utility companies, so they're throwing money at it - worth taking while available. For the rest of it, I'd say don't waste your money unless you've already got a green deal provider lined up who confirms they can fund the expected works.
What a difference the private sector makes.
tim seems to think the Royal Mail privatisation is just about the money.
However this phrase represents all that is wrong with Uk politics.
" by analysts, journalists, think tanks and groups ranging from Shelter to the Institute of Directors"
The more this group are ignored the better...
I asked mine for £20 - and said he'd robbed me blind and was a capitalist pig-dog.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2453431/More-10-000-tenants-purchased-properties-Right-Buy-scheme-year.html
10th Oct
"Margaret Thatcher's flagship Right to Buy scheme has been given a boost with the number of people buying their council houses doubling in a year.
Ten thousand tenants have purchased their properties since last year, the highest level since before the recession, after the government increased the discounts available."
"France’s constitutional council has upheld a law banning hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, backing the socialist government’s stance against exploiting the country’s shale energy deposits that industry has urged it to develop.
Business leaders, concerned by high energy prices in Europe, have been frustrated by the refusal on environmental grounds by successive French governments to allow fracking despite estimates that France has among the biggest potential reserves of shale oil and gas in the EU."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34b5dad6-3261-11e3-b3a7-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2hQ1CEfi2
The real solution to the housing shortage is to relax planning regulation in areas where we need more housing. How much architectural damage would be done if we left east London, for example, to its own devices on this front?
"I trust you are going to fund the next pb drinks event. Least you can bloody do. Eight short years ago you were a penniless, struggling, (on benefits IIRC), semi-starving, shrouded in fear and terror by the 7/7/05 bombings. See, I can recall your virginal posts.
So give something back to the folks who never lost faith. It's called the Big Society. Bottoms up."
No, no. Sean T should take us all on a tour of his favourite bits of Italy: the Tyrol, Naples and Sicily by my reckoning (unless I've lost track) and show us all the fine wines, foods and luxury hotels he's been telling us about.
As a native Italian speaker I shall selflessly volunteer for interpreting services.
Mental.
It's not a bad scheme I don't think, if you need your boiler replacing but don't have the capital. The key flaw in the scheme is indeed the fact that you have to pay the money for the survey - and that the surveyors usually work for companies that have an interest in you getting the work done.
What does that make Gordon's gold sale?
The message seems rather mixed...
It's a good example of how the Lib Dems have learnt to concentrate their vote to survive with FPTP, and how inefficient distribution of Tory votes really hurts them in FPTP.
What next - whining about polling on unicorns ?
Not so much a black swan event for British politics as a black horse event, I expect.
But the most important thing is that many small investors have taken part including a tenth of the Royal Mail itself. And the government keeps a share. It effectively insulates the gov't against the idea of missing out.
The government in June 2013 recognised the scale of the supply issues in the housing sector announcing that it would provide significant support for the housing market. This consisted of a total of over £5.1 billion of investment to support housing in England between 2015-16 and 2017-18. Including £3.3 billion of new funding for affordable housing between 2015-16 and 2017-18 and certainty on social rents up to 2025-26. This is anticipated to provide over 200,000 new affordable homes by 2018-19.
And this is all in addition to the support provided by the Funds for Lending and three Help to Buy schemes.
Oh dear, tim.
Not your day, today.
In the December 2009 Pre-Budget Report Labour chancellor Alistair Darling announced a halving of net public sector investment.....
If you go to table B13 on page 189 of the December 2009 Pre-Budget Report you can see how public sector net investment was due to be halved by Darling....
Look at the net investment line which goes from £50 billion in 2009/10 to £22 billion in 2013/14."
http://philtaylor.org.uk/2010/11/labour-will-spend-the-next-five-years-lying-about-investment-spending/
I am not sure what you mean by "total govt spending". But whatever you mean (Central Government spending?) it will be a subset of the TME figures.
So Osborne's fiscal policies didnt kill growth (according to the stats tim posted) and he allowed more capital spending than Labour planned for.
Where on earth does this leave tim?!
(Just for clarity - that's £50 for me?)
Congrats on your success. 'Upmarket' Ghost story is an interesting term...the case of the haunted Waitrose??
"I could be dead and not writing these words.
At least that might have been the case, if The Guardian had published the highly classified secrets of how the Secret Intelligence Services use technology to protect our country from terrorism in 1992, when I was patrolling the so called “bandit country” of South Armagh."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10372785/If-The-Guardian-had-published-its-Snowden-stories-in-1992-I-might-be-dead.html
"Mr Straw told BBC News: "I'm not suggesting for a moment anybody in the Guardian gratuitously wants to risk anybody's life, but what I do think is that their sense of power of having these secrets and excitement - almost adolescent excitement - about these secrets has gone to their head.
"They're blinding themselves about the consequence and also showing an extraordinary naïveté and arrogance in implying that they are in a position to judge whether or not particular secrets are not likely to damage the national interest. They're not in any position at all to do that." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10372603/Jack-Straw-Guardian-has-shown-extraordinary-naivete-and-arrogance-in-leaks.html
I think he has to fall back on saying that in 2010 Osborne was either spending too much time telling people the sky was falling in or that the 'recovery was on track'.
Because if they did Labour would be screaming "do they think East London is [ugly/not worth preserving/a desolate wasteland/insert hyperbole de jour]"
http://order-order.com/2013/10/11/guardians-bid-for-smear-of-the-year/
Polly apparently blaming a sub for the headline... Like the Mail. Oh, wait...
Tories believe it is better for people to own their own homes, because this contributes towards a sense of pride, a desire to maintain the property and to invest in the area. Bob Crow is a citizen of this country, and so should have the same rights as other citizens. Because of the societal benefit of home ownership, this should include a contribution to buying his own council house. I would be happy, though, if government wanted to introduce restrictions (say income or wealth) on people who got this support, although you need to be careful around incentives.
However, there is also a role for social housing. However this is a scarce resource and should be preserved for those who need it most. Bob Crow earns a large salary working in a senior role for a private organisation. He doesn't strike me as the target market for social housing.
In fact I would go futher than that. Bob Crow is, in my opinion, a greedy blood-sucking parasite who is greedily diverting limited social resources that other people desparately need. He earns enough to buy his own home or to rent one privately.
As we have discussed before and no doubt will many times more, the business model for social housing build pursued over the past two decades is flawed.
In the short term, Osborne was right to cut further subsidy to a non-functioning sector and concentrate his efforts on stimulating private sector housing construction.
I accept that this policy fails to address the long term needs for increased social housing but the key to satisfying this need is not to continue throwing government money at it until a new business model can be developed which will have to address not only returns on investment for building, maintaining and managing property for rent but also the need to attract finance to support expansion. In a market where you lose a little on each dwelling unit you are unlikely to make up the losses by increasing volume.
The whole relationship between current expenses (housing benefit) and the capital accounts (investment, stock valuation and market liquidity) needs to be re-evaluated.
A UK terror incident now would be terrible for us all, but for the Guardian.....sheeesh
He fell out with Ed Miliband over the Syria vote. {He} wanted Labour to support David Cameron’s plan to back military action.
Murphy felt the Tories would not forget the voting doublecross and get their vengeance in the first military venture a future Labour government might propose. (my emphasis)
The Labour leader might think he has exiled a possible critic and rival to the outback of international development.
But remember how Macduff was exiled to England by Macbeth. Macduff came back – and took out Macbeth.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/record-view-michael-moore-need-2349264
A sharp but accurate comment.
No doubt when the next atrocity happens they will be writing articles about why the security services failed to catch the perpetrators.
@HSJEditor: Surprising? Net satisfaction with 'the running of the NHS' apparently on the rise http://t.co/Qp48c5YDsF Lots of interesting data here
I guess that makes the auctions an important career milestone.
Good luck!
PR^2 solves these problems, while remaining quasi-STV.
i) Only first preferences will determine the national outcome. Most votes will equal most seats, and every vote will contribute directly to the national result. The preferences will determine the winning constituency candidates, once the winning parties have been allocated to constituencies.
ii) The overall outcome is closer to FPTP (winners bonus). A majority is still possible while landslides would be moderated.
Comparison
Or at least a like. If they existed. Which they don't.
So consider your post metaphysically liked.
...but it would be pretty dull under STV too - at least the beer is good
Most of the voters in Oxfordshire may as well not exist, for all the difference their individual decision whether to bother to cast a vote will make to the outcome of the 2015 general election. It is a testament to the overlooked virtue of civic duty that turnout will be so high despite this, but we can already predict the outcome of five of Oxfordshire's six seats with virtually absolute certainty.
The Conservatives will hold the four "rural" seats of Witney, Banbury, Wantage and Henley. Labour, though run close by the Lib Dems in 2005, will hold Oxford East as they have done since 1987. This leaves us with the Lib Dem attempt to regain Oxford West & Abingdon. While this will be a genuine contest any supporter of Ed Miliband is left with the choice between abstaining on the contest between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives, or voting for the Coalition by voting tactically to unseat a Tory.
There is no reason for Labour to make anything other than a routine effort anywhere in Oxfordshire, and for the Tories and Lib Dems the only seat in play is Oxford West & Abingdon. Five-sixths of the county will be effectively ignored by the political campaigns, and the one-sixth that is not will only have the attention of two of the three major parties.
Using STV the six seats would probably split three to the Conservatives, two to the Liberal Democrats and one to Labour. It looks like all three parties are quite far from winning/losing any of these seats, so a switch to STV would appear to make politics even less interesting in Oxfordshire.
However, in a couple of important respects this is not the case. Firstly, while the party splits look fairly stable, voters would be able to use STV to choose between the candidates representing each party. It would be for Conservative voters to decide which two of Tony Baldry, Ed Vaizey, John Howell and Nicola Blackwood would join David Cameron in the Commons.
Secondly, there has been a large decline in the Labour vote in southern rural seats, as the party has ruthlessly concentrated resources on the marginals. If they could reverse that in rural Oxfordshire they could hope to take an extra seat here away from the Lib Dems, and so there would be an incentive for both Labour and the Lib Dems to campaign more vigorously in the Oxfordshire seats that are currently Tory safe seats.
Far easier, though, to make sure the likes of Bob Crow don't live in the houses, and then you can give the discounts to all the occupants.
re: post office, don't make stuff up. I don't believe that 330p is a knock down price. I haven't seen Lazard's report, but I think Peston noted that 330p is well supported by comparable companies. Arguably there is upside (restructuring) in a newly privatised company so you could argue for a slightly higher price, but that is probably offset by the typical IPO discount. I just think there is a lot of froth in the price, and there isn't much value left at 450p.
October 10 2013
"Michael Dugher: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much his Department and its associated public bodies spent on (a) external public relations consultants and (b) public affairs consultants, in each of the past three years; and for what purposes such consultants were engaged.
Brandon Lewis: The information is as follows:
External public relations:
The core department has spent nothing on external public relations from 2010-11 to 2012-13. This compares with the last Administration which spent nearly £1.1 million in 2009-10, on top of employing over 100 in-house communications staff......
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm131010/text/131010w0003.htm#13101080000104
Necessity is the mother of invention is a truism for a reason.
If the intended result of HTB is to win votes then I don't think it will be very successful, the number of people who gain directly from such a scheme is quite small, but if it is to help people like me get on the property ladder then I think it is going to be very successful. It also has the added bonus of bringing in a few billion in fees to the Treasury.
If anything the biggest losers are traditional Tory voters who own buy-to-let properties who will all see their rental yields decrease as younger people now have a prop to get on the housing ladder, the only other intervention that would be as successful in lowering rents would be rent controls. As for the bastard landlords, **** em. Earning money doing sweet FA is not something the government should encourage.
"Public affairs consultancy
My Department has spent nothing since 2010-11 on public affairs consultancy. Ministers in this Government in May to July 2010 instructed all our arm’s length bodies to cancel all such contracts, and there should have been no further expenditure other than the termination of those contracts during 2010-11, as outlined in the answer to my question of 14 December 2010, Official Report, column 676-77W.
To place this in context, taxpayers' money in the last Administration was being spent on the likes of:
LLM Communications by DCLG to run a “sock puppet” campaign in favour of Regional Spatial Strategies;
Chelgate by West Northamptonshire Development Corporation with a remit including the goal of securing “additional funding” from DCLG;
Mandate by Ordnance Survey, which included lobbying the Conservative Party in Opposition behind Labour Ministers' backs;"
The reason that I have come to like STV is that it appears to be the representative elective system that gives most power to individual electors to determine the result without forcing them into a party system.
"It is clear that the Tories are not prepared to give such a platform to Mr Farage. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are more open-minded, perhaps mischievously rather than out of principle. They know Mr Farage would give Mr Cameron the biggest headache, and so are content to let the Prime Minister wield the veto."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/inside-westminster-why-the-leadership-debates-of-2015-wont-happen--even-through-they-should-8874563.html
Well done on your success. I hope you earn a fortune.
You're a fab writer and funny too. And you might be a **** to lefties, but that makes it even funnier.
I introduced my brother to the stuff you write. He's a teacher; an alcoholic, manic-depressive English lecturer who wears shit clothes and drinks vodka. He constantly bangs on about how intellectual and fascinating his fellow lefty lecturers are. They all hate Tories, hate Britain and read Plath's poetry in the staff room to cheer eachother up. I told him to show your Telegraph pieces to them, so they can choke on their tofu.
After reading your stuff he ended up drinking even more vodka.
Congrats anyway. As arse-lickey as it is to say it I wish I could write as well as you. And I bet everyone else does too.