So it's either David Davis who hasn't run a whelk stall,that "nasty piece of work",old Etonian bully,Boris Johnson or Mogadon Phil who would make an excellent Funeral Director and has he inspirational qualities of a turnip.
The Tories don't need inspirational qualities just a John Major style technocrat to beat Corbyn
Corbyn for all his policy faults is a genuine human being, someone like hammond would result in Labour majority. Has to be either Ruth or Boris.
Ruth will stay in Scotland and Boris is simply not up to it.
There are no easy choices but I would expect Rudd or Hammond to take over.
And by the way, no hard Brexit anymore
Definitely no easy choices . Best outcome for Tories as follows.
Keep TM till end of brexit negotiation. Which will be some fudge on FOM for workers + cash in return for market access. TM becomes the lightening rod for leaver anger. Hand over to more charismatic leader, election in 2020.
Absolutely not. A Corbyn government now with Brexit coming up would be a disaster for the country, socialism and out of the single market not to mention it would set a disastrous precedent for the Tories to refuse to serve when they got 60 seats more than Labour. If the Tories cannot be bothered to try and govern then the voters may well rightly conclude why should they be worth voting for again?
No the Tories and DUP have a majority between them and should be allowed to get on with governing. In any case the LDs may well vote with the government and against Corbyn on some issues too. What the Tories need to do is to learn the lessons of the election, ease off on austerity, end the dementia tax and create a proper commission to look at social care and pursue a more balanced Brexit. As for May she will go before the next general election but she can stay for now, she won 13.6 million votes after all last week and the Grenfell Fire is not something she can be blamed for, she has correctly ordered an inquiry and indeed has now visited victims as well as the emergency services
In normal times I could agree with you but does anyone seriously think after what we've seen so far that it is a good idea to go into the Brexit negotiations with May at the helm?
He's tolerated as the House Tory because his of his unorthodox views (see also PR)
A shame he's blind to the fact that he's being manipulated to push a meme of a party divided (which it is to an extent, but not down his lines)
Is David Herdson one PBer you would be happy to extinguish a fire on if he were ablaze, as opposed to another PB you recently deemed unsuitable for saving from death by burning?
Just asking .... so the site fire fighters might be on hand.
I said no such thing. I said I wouldn't run back to him with an opinion.
Kindly retract that untruth.
GeoffM Posts: 5,149 June 16 AlastairMeeks said: » show previous quotes Get back to me when you can count to 326.
I wouldn't "get back to you" if you were on fire, to be honest.
Exactly. Many thanks for going back and getting that. He wanted me to get back to him with an opinion on the seat numbers and I declined to bother under any circumstances..
Point proved and his apology is awaited.
Again, cheers for getting the original comment back. Appreciated.
My wife and I bought a very run down flat, which we thoroughly refurbished and let out. It's not a slum, and we've brought a run down property back into use.
I'm sure you've done a great job Sean, and are I bet a great landlord. But, and it is a big but, you are de facto depriving another of the joy of owning that flat and doing it up themselves....
But, you always get people, like our tenants, who only wish to stay there for a short while. Think how hard it would be to take up jobs in new places, if the only way of doing so was to buy a new property.
Well, quite. And some of us have zero interest in doing up properties and spending our time worrying about the roof, the boiler, etc. - and would much prefer to leave it to people who are either interested in doing it or professionally trained.
Because a bad landlord can pretty much ruin your life, people feel strongly about them. But a healthy rental market is an important part of any society and there's nothing inherently evil in being a landlord. I've rented nearly all my life and had good relationships with every landlord/agent throughout. But good regulation is important to prevent the bad landlords undercutting the good ones and giving them a bad name.
As we have just unfortunately seen, a non profit landlord is no guarantor of a safe rental property.
An issue that struck me with all this debate about fire-resistant cladding: what do insurers feel? Surely there is an issue with potentially invalidating building insurance if you fit flammable materials to the outside of the building?
Retrospective rejection of existing properties would be out of order but good point about any new schemes
So it's either David Davis who hasn't run a whelk stall,that "nasty piece of work",old Etonian bully,Boris Johnson or Mogadon Phil who would make an excellent Funeral Director and has he inspirational qualities of a turnip.
The Tories don't need inspirational qualities just a John Major style technocrat to beat Corbyn
Corbyn for all his policy faults is a genuine human being, someone like hammond would result in Labour majority. Has to be either Ruth or Boris.
Ruth will stay in Scotland and Boris is simply not up to it.
There are no easy choices but I would expect Rudd or Hammond to take over.
And by the way, no hard Brexit anymore
Definitely no easy choices . Best outcome for Tories as follows.
Keep TM till end of brexit negotiation. Which will be some fudge on FOM for workers + cash in return for market access. TM becomes the lightening rod for leaver anger. Hand over to more charismatic leader, election in 2020.
Assuming she gets the Queens Speech approved and, even though late, becomes actively engaged personally with the fire disaster, she may yet be the least worse option at present
Simply saying 'no hard Brexit anymore' does not change reality - if there is no reasonable deal on offer from the EU this is exactly what will happen. There is no evidence that a soft Brexit can be accomplished simply because that is what we want - it is not the case that this deal is on the table unless the UK is prepared to concede on matters that simply cannot and will not be conceded.
As a result, if May hangs around for a few more months David Davis is likely to emerge as the successor, because it will be clear that we need someone to stand up to the EU's demands which will be increasingly seen as unreasonable. He will be the safe pair of hands.
So it's either David Davis who hasn't run a whelk stall,that "nasty piece of work",old Etonian bully,Boris Johnson or Mogadon Phil who would make an excellent Funeral Director and has he inspirational qualities of a turnip.
The Tories don't need inspirational qualities just a John Major style technocrat to beat Corbyn
Corbyn for all his policy faults is a genuine human being, someone like hammond would result in Labour majority. Has to be either Ruth or Boris.
Ruth will stay in Scotland and Boris is simply not up to it.
There are no easy choices but I would expect Rudd or Hammond to take over.
My wife and I bought a very run down flat, which we thoroughly refurbished and let out. It's not a slum, and we've brought a run down property back into use.
I'm sure you've done a great job Sean, and are I bet a great landlord. But, and it is a big but, you are de facto depriving another of the joy of owning that flat and doing it up themselves....
But, you always get people, like our tenants, who only wish to stay there for a short while. Think how hard it would be to take up jobs in new places, if the only way of doing so was to buy a new property.
Well, quite. And some of us have zero interest in doing up properties and spending our time worrying about the roof, the boiler, etc. - and would much prefer to leave it to people who are either interested in doing it or professionally trained.
Because a bad landlord can pretty much ruin your life, people feel strongly about them. But a healthy rental market is an important part of any society and there's nothing inherently evil in being a landlord. I've rented nearly all my life and had good relationships with every landlord/agent throughout. But good regulation is important to prevent the bad landlords undercutting the good ones and giving them a bad name.
As we have just unfortunately seen, a non profit landlord is no guarantor of a safe rental property.
An issue that struck me with all this debate about fire-resistant cladding: what do insurers feel? Surely there is an issue with potentially invalidating building insurance if you fit flammable materials to the outside of the building?
Retrospective rejection of existing properties would be out of order but good point about any new schemes
Well that logic will get you up to the annual renewal point but would you willingly continue to insure a building with a known risk...
For what it's worth, the Tories could do far worse than reversing the 2011 tuition fees reforms. They has saved the government almost no money (thanks to the hike in repayment threshold from c. £15k to £21k) and have made the financial position of young people dramatically worse than those a few years their senior.
On May, she will be PM for the next 2 years. Tory MPs have accepted it, so what any of us think doesn't really matter. The mob rule that we would experience if Corbyn got into power, as exemplified by the reaction to Grenfell, makes keeping him out the overwhelming duty of the Tory party. We cannot afford a trial run with authoritarian socialism.
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
I find it extraordinary when I read about average wages. I have two persons [ both women ] work in our warehouse. They earn approximately £25k each.
No wonder, we have very little staff turnover. 27% of our employees have been in the company for more than 20 years. Sometimes, I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Of course, as a result, we have very little recruitment costs, both in money and time.
My wife and I bought a very run down flat, which we thoroughly refurbished and let out. It's not a slum, and we've brought a run down property back into use.
I'm sure you've done a great job Sean, and are I bet a great landlord. But, and it is a big but, you are de facto depriving another of the joy of owning that flat and doing it up themselves....
But, you always get people, like our tenants, who only wish to stay there for a short while. Think how hard it would be to take up jobs in new places, if the only way of doing so was to buy a new property.
Well, quite. And some of us have zero interest in doing up properties and spending our time worrying about the roof, the boiler, etc. - and would much prefer to leave it to people who are either interested in doing it or professionally trained.
Because a bad landlord can pretty much ruin your life, people feel strongly about them. But a healthy rental market is an important part of any society and there's nothing inherently evil in being a landlord. I've rented nearly all my life and had good relationships with every landlord/agent throughout. But good regulation is important to prevent the bad landlords undercutting the good ones and giving them a bad name.
As we have just unfortunately seen, a non profit landlord is no guarantor of a safe rental property.
An issue that struck me with all this debate about fire-resistant cladding: what do insurers feel? Surely there is an issue with potentially invalidating building insurance if you fit flammable materials to the outside of the building?
Retrospective rejection of existing properties would be out of order but good point about any new schemes
Well that logic will get you up to the annual renewal point but would you willingly continue to insure a building with a known risk...
No - and there is the problem and the cost could be immense. Makes Corbyn's tuition fee promise look like petty cash
Even in saintly Germany there is a huge private BTL sector alongside the state housing sector, because lots of professionals want good-quality dwellings that let them move around, and lots of other people are looking for an investment. Some renters even buy one BTL and live in someone else's BTL if it suits their living needs better! So if there's a problem, it's not the existence of the market, but the lack of affordability.
Average age of first marriage for men used to be 24 in the '70s, now it's 32. People have also much less front-loaded lifetime income expectations now that further and higher education is more common - so deposit building takes longer. There's no way to make those numbers work in a way that doesn't lead to a lot less home ownership and a lot more demand for BTLs than in the '70s.
So it's either David Davis who hasn't run a whelk stall,that "nasty piece of work",old Etonian bully,Boris Johnson or Mogadon Phil who would make an excellent Funeral Director and has he inspirational qualities of a turnip.
The Tories don't need inspirational qualities just a John Major style technocrat to beat Corbyn
Corbyn for all his policy faults is a genuine human being, someone like hammond would result in Labour majority. Has to be either Ruth or Boris.
Ruth will stay in Scotland and Boris is simply not up to it.
There are no easy choices but I would expect Rudd or Hammond to take over.
And by the way, no hard Brexit anymore
Definitely no easy choices . Best outcome for Tories as follows.
Keep TM till end of brexit negotiation. Which will be some fudge on FOM for workers + cash in return for market access. TM becomes the lightening rod for leaver anger. Hand over to more charismatic leader, election in 2020.
He's tolerated as the House Tory because his of his unorthodox views (see also PR)
A shame he's blind to the fact that he's being manipulated to push a meme of a party divided (which it is to an extent, but not down his lines)
Is David Herdson one PBer you would be happy to extinguish a fire on if he were ablaze, as opposed to another PB you recently deemed unsuitable for saving from death by burning?
Just asking .... so the site fire fighters might be on hand.
I said no such thing. I said I wouldn't run back to him with an opinion.
Kindly retract that untruth.
GeoffM Posts: 5,149 June 16 AlastairMeeks said: » show previous quotes Get back to me when you can count to 326.
I wouldn't "get back to you" if you were on fire, to be honest.
Exactly. Many thanks for going back and getting that. He wanted me to get back to him with an opinion on the seat numbers and I declined to bother under any circumstances..
Point proved and his apology is awaited.
Again, cheers for getting the original comment back. Appreciated.
I'd stop digging if I were you. Do you have shares in JCB?
As I said at the time it was a "classy remark" given recent events.
For what it's worth, the Tories could do far worse than reversing the 2011 tuition fees reforms. They has saved the government almost no money (thanks to the hike in repayment threshold from c. £15k to £21k) and have made the financial position of young people dramatically worse than those a few years their senior.
On May, she will be PM for the next 2 years. Tory MPs have accepted it, so what any of us think doesn't really matter. The mob rule that we would experience if Corbyn got into power, as exemplified by the reaction to Grenfell, makes keeping him out the overwhelming duty of the Tory party. We cannot afford a trial run with authoritarian socialism.
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
So you think it's better to be paying 9% more income tax forever on everything over £21k, rather than paying 9% more income tax until your early/mid-30s on everything over £15k?
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
I find it extraordinary when I read about average wages. I have two persons [ both women ] work in our warehouse. They earn approximately £25k each.
No wonder, we have very little staff turnover. 27% of our employees have been in the company for more than 20 years. Sometimes, I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Of course, as a result, we have very little recruitment costs, both in money and time.
The site where I work has historically also had very little staff turnover. A good 80% of the office has worked for the company more than 10-15 years.
The downside is that the technology/IT used is piss-poor, mainly due to people being unaware of what others company's are doing. It's a "this has always worked so why change?" philosophy.
It's obviously worked to this point and I'm really in no position to criticise but I find it very frustrating.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
I think you're bang on. Abolition of tuition fees, or even a reversal of the changes, would be highly regressive. I've never had much truck with the argument of "poor people should get their university education for free" where "poor people" is defined by "their parents are poor", rather than "after graduation they turn out to be poor". (Though I will acknowledge that fear of debt is a bigger barrier to participation among lower-income communities - partly because of a lack of financial education, I suspect.)
My point was just that the new system has both winners and losers - and the losers are the higher-earners, which is probably where most of us agree it should be.
For what it's worth, the Tories could do far worse than reversing the 2011 tuition fees reforms. They has saved the government almost no money (thanks to the hike in repayment threshold from c. £15k to £21k) and have made the financial position of young people dramatically worse than those a few years their senior.
On May, she will be PM for the next 2 years. Tory MPs have accepted it, so what any of us think doesn't really matter. The mob rule that we would experience if Corbyn got into power, as exemplified by the reaction to Grenfell, makes keeping him out the overwhelming duty of the Tory party. We cannot afford a trial run with authoritarian socialism.
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
So you think it's better to be paying 9% more income tax forever on everything over £21k, rather than paying 9% more income tax until your early/mid-30s on everything over £15k?
It's a view.
If one never pays back their loan, the 9k fees are better. That was aways the point. It helps people on low incomes much, much more and that can only be a good thing.
I think the Queen has been magnificent in this crisis with her speech today and minute's silence. She seems to be in tune with the Nation and it is good to see the residents attending Church vigils and cancelling a demonstration.
It is also good to see the Government has sent a task force to Kensington to co-ordinate the Council and Governments response.
If the hot heads can be kept in control, the residents have a very good chance of being heard and helped
How is this befitting of an MP? Imagine the uproar if Farage had tweeted a photo of the dead in London Bridge and said "Slash immigration, not people?"
Lets be serious, if Remain had won by 52/48 we would have had exactly the same problem - they would have claimed the question was decided, there would be no change to our status in the EU for the foreseeable future and there would have been no attempt whatsoever to do anything about the 48% who voted leave.
EU membership is a binary choice and thus divisive. People who think that it is not a binary choice (e.g. all the soft Brexit crowd) are going to find out on Monday that this is not a reality.
Painful as it is, the referendum was the only way to resolve this issue and the will of the majority has to be enacted.
It hasn't even been a year since the Brexit referendum and it already feels like a completely different country now. Fuck knows where we go from here...
That is what happens when one side wins by 2% and everyone goes "It's clear that the will of the people is Brexit". No, it was the will of slightly more voters. In GE2015 the will of plenty of voters was to put Ed Miliband in Downing Street. The country is divided and rightly so.
Absolutely correct. Theresa's biggest blunder - by a very long chalk- was allowing the Hardest-of-Brexit crowd to take over proceedings. This is a fringe faction even within the euro-sceptic movement, let alone the public at large. Remainers were, of course, horrified and deserted the Tories in droves, whilst most Leavers were left feeling distinctly queasy. Theresa should have assured the nation that she sought 'a Brexit we can all be comfortable with'. Uniting these multitudinous strands of public opinion would have been a demanding project to be sure, but that's what great leaders are supposed to attempt. Pandering to the fringe is naive short-termism and ultimately doomed.
My girlfriend is a NHS Speech Therapist and therefore did not pay tuition fees. She only received maintenance loans.
She is no better off financially having not 'paid' tuition fees and will likely never pay off her loans either.
People earning 100k+ in London might feel hard done by paying 9k loans but for us out in the provinces it's a different story.
There's so much mis-information about on this issue and I wish that the coalition had 'branded' this change better instead of scaring people by the amount of 'debt'.
BBC - Prime Minister not at Trooping of the Colour.
Another hostile crowd avoided ....
I think it would be pretty insensitive to attend it, when more urgent tasks await.
I presume you mean dishing out pork to the DUP ?
She has invited residents of the tragedy to Downing Street this afternoon
Excellent - To stay in a spare bedroom? ... That would be something.
More likely a few carefully screened individuals with as little scope for political embarrassment as possible.
Sad to see you join in the May witch hunt. I had thought such caddishness beneath you.
Being highly critical isn't a witch hunt simply a reflection of what I and many PB Tories and Conservative commentators believe.
I had hoped for so much more from the Prime Minister but sadly even basic competence seems beyond her. She has in many ways become a tragic figure but the nation deserves better and she should exit with as much dignity that she may muster but in double quick time.
Lets be serious, if Remain had won by 52/48 we would have had exactly the same problem - they would have claimed the question was decided, there would be no change to our status in the EU for the foreseeable future and there would have been no attempt whatsoever to do anything about the 48% who voted leave.
EU membership is a binary choice and thus divisive. People who think that it is not a binary choice (e.g. all the soft Brexit crowd) are going to find out on Monday that this is not a reality.
Painful as it is, the referendum was the only way to resolve this issue and the will of the majority has to be enacted.
It hasn't even been a year since the Brexit referendum and it already feels like a completely different country now. Fuck knows where we go from here...
That is what happens when one side wins by 2% and everyone goes "It's clear that the will of the people is Brexit". No, it was the will of slightly more voters. In GE2015 the will of plenty of voters was to put Ed Miliband in Downing Street. The country is divided and rightly so.
Absolutely correct. Theresa's biggest blunder - by a very long chalk- was allowing the Hardest-of-Brexit crowd to take over proceedings. This is a fringe faction even within the euro-sceptic movement, let alone the public at large. Remainers were, of course, horrified and deserted the Tories in droves, whilst most Leavers were left feeling distinctly queasy. Theresa should have assured the nation that she sought 'a Brexit we can all be comfortable with'. Uniting these multitudinous strands of public opinion would have been a demanding project to be sure, but that's what great leaders are supposed to attempt. Pandering to the fringe is naive short-termism and ultimately doomed.
In some respects the general election clarified what Brexit we want. The fact neither the Tories on a hard Brexit platform nor the LDs on a reverse Brexit platform made much progress and the resultant hung parliament ensures we will get Brexit but with a softer edge
For what it's worth, the Tories could do far worse than reversing the 2011 tuition fees reforms. They has saved the government almost no money (thanks to the hike in repayment threshold from c. £15k to £21k) and have made the financial position of young people dramatically worse than those a few years their senior.
On May, she will be PM for the next 2 years. Tory MPs have accepted it, so what any of us think doesn't really matter. The mob rule that we would experience if Corbyn got into power, as exemplified by the reaction to Grenfell, makes keeping him out the overwhelming duty of the Tory party. We cannot afford a trial run with authoritarian socialism.
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
So you think it's better to be paying 9% more income tax forever on everything over £21k, rather than paying 9% more income tax until your early/mid-30s on everything over £15k?
It's a view.
If one never pays back their loan, the 9k fees are better. That was aways the point. It helps people on low incomes much, much more and that can only be a good thing.
This theory only works because there has been very little wage increases in the last 7 years. Once normality returns that would not be the case.
BBC - Prime Minister not at Trooping of the Colour.
Another hostile crowd avoided ....
I think it would be pretty insensitive to attend it, when more urgent tasks await.
I presume you mean dishing out pork to the DUP ?
She has invited residents of the tragedy to Downing Street this afternoon
All of them ? Some tea and sympathy, I suppose, is better than no tea and sympathy ?
One thing she simply does not understand. The initial mistakes in human reaction cannot be fully rectified.
Agreed but that is the way she is. However, your comment of 'all of them' shows you do have an agenda to see the government fail but unfortunately for you that is not going to happen
He's tolerated as the House Tory because his of his unorthodox views (see also PR)
A shame he's blind to the fact that he's being manipulated to push a meme of a party divided (which it is to an extent, but not down his lines)
Is David Herdson one PBer you would be happy to extinguish a fire on if he were ablaze, as opposed to another PB you recently deemed unsuitable for saving from death by burning?
Just asking .... so the site fire fighters might be on hand.
I said no such thing. I said I wouldn't run back to him with an opinion.
Kindly retract that untruth.
GeoffM Posts: 5,149 June 16 AlastairMeeks said: » show previous quotes Get back to me when you can count to 326.
I wouldn't "get back to you" if you were on fire, to be honest.
Exactly. Many thanks for going back and getting that. He wanted me to get back to him with an opinion on the seat numbers and I declined to bother under any circumstances..
Point proved and his apology is awaited.
Again, cheers for getting the original comment back. Appreciated.
I'd stop digging if I were you. Do you have shares in JCB?
As I said at the time it was a "classy remark" given recent events.
Eh? Scrapheap has just proved me right in black and white.
Still, it's the Queen's Birthday Bank Holiday weekend here and day 2 of the tuna season. Those fish won't catch themselves and I've got a new fighting chair to test out.
Back later to scroll through the rest of the thread and look for your apology.
We lost among 35-50 year olds as well. All of my friends who are in the 27-33 range are looking to buy, but most are unable to raise enough money for deposits because rents are so high. As always you're completely clueless.
Max, the issue isn't really BTL per se (the private rental sector plays an important role, and the numbers aren't that huge).
The problem with house prices is driven by low mortgage rates and low yields on alternative investments. The other issue - this is a London one, but anecdotally I believe it is spreading out - is driven by foreign investors using London property as a store of value and not even bothering to let them out.
Solution is to add a premium (say 2-3% p.a.) to the cost of a BTL mortgage. Hypothecate the money to a fund that is dedicated to building social housing for rent.
Foreign owners of home (let's say non UK tax resident as a basis) pay an annual premium of 15% of the value of the home that is paid into the same social fund
Housing benefit should also be reformed. No short term contracts available: councils (or the social housing fund) should enter into long-term contracts (say 10 years +) at a small premium to current rates. So, if you can borrow at 3%, for example, you can be paid 3.5% as a guaranteed income from the State. If you limit loans to 90% of value for houses in this segment, it gives equity providers a guaranteed 5% pre-tax return on their equity [pretty close to the underlying risk free rate].
Exempt the social housing fund from planning permission requirements (obviously not building regs). Properties are built and managed centrally (by an arms length fund). Also support council building of homes for local provision on a matched fund basis. Also have ability to finance institutional money building homes for let on a long-term basis as per the above.
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
So you think it's better to be paying 9% more income tax forever on everything over £21k, rather than paying 9% more income tax until your early/mid-30s on everything over £15k?
It's a view.
If one never pays back their loan, the 9k fees are better. That was aways the point. It helps people on low incomes much, much more and that can only be a good thing.
This theory only works because there has been very little wage increases in the last 7 years. Once normality returns that would not be the case.
What sort of wage increases are you expecting? Even with a salary of 75,000 a year, one pays less on Scheme 2 than they do on Scheme 1.
A higher earner can voluntarily pay more back if they desire.
So it's either David Davis who hasn't run a whelk stall,that "nasty piece of work",old Etonian bully,Boris Johnson or Mogadon Phil who would make an excellent Funeral Director and has he inspirational qualities of a turnip.
The Tories don't need inspirational qualities just a John Major style technocrat to beat Corbyn
Corbyn for all his policy faults is a genuine human being, someone like hammond would result in Labour majority. Has to be either Ruth or Boris.
Why? 42% were prepared to vote for May to keep out Corbyn, no reason they might not vote for Hammond to keep out Corbyn too
Dug up the IFS paper on graduate earnings if anyone wants to take a gander.Executive summary and full paper, but there's also an excellent summary (complete with very informative graphs) at thisismoney.
Cynical Jack - lets see what they say after the visit
I try not to be but I'm struggling to give the PM the benefit of the doubt, which is unlike me. It smacks of damage limitation but I'm happy to be proved wrong.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe that there is any soft Brexit option that can 'bring people together' and that 'we can all be comfortable with'. Voting to leave the EU meant leaving the SM. Over 65% of the UK public want FOM to end, and SM membership is incompatible with this.
What May (and Corbyn lets remember) are proposing is the only option - leave the SM but try and do a deal to maintain a decent relationship. The error is in thinking that we can have a 'soft Brexit' if we choose one - we are not negotiating against ourselves. I sometimes wonder what sort of compromises people think can be made that will ensure a 'soft Brexit'? I think, sadly, the answer is really to accept FOM again. This is not going to bring the country together, it will cause chaos.
The reality is that the only option is to negotiate in good faith and hope that a deal can be done and plan for the possibility that it cannot. There is NO deal on offer that can be accepted, so saying that 'no deal is not an option' is not reflecting reality at this point. At some point in the negotiations, we may get to this, but the current EU position cannot be accepted so unless it is improved there will be no deal.
Lets be serious, if Remain had won by 52/48 we would have had exactly the same problem - they would have claimed the question was decided, there would be no change to our status in the EU for the foreseeable future and there would have been no attempt whatsoever to do anything about the 48% who voted leave.
EU membership is a binary choice and thus divisive. People who think that it is not a binary choice (e.g. all the soft Brexit crowd) are going to find out on Monday that this is not a reality.
Painful as it is, the referendum was the only way to resolve this issue and the will of the majority has to be enacted.
Absolutely correct. Theresa's biggest blunder - by a very long chalk- was allowing the Hardest-of-Brexit crowd to take over proceedings. This is a fringe faction even within the euro-sceptic movement, let alone the public at large. Remainers were, of course, horrified and deserted the Tories in droves, whilst most Leavers were left feeling distinctly queasy. Theresa should have assured the nation that she sought 'a Brexit we can all be comfortable with'. Uniting these multitudinous strands of public opinion would have been a demanding project to be sure, but that's what great leaders are supposed to attempt. Pandering to the fringe is naive short-termism and ultimately doomed.
I'm sorry but that's rubbish. I paid the 3k fees but my brother paid the 9k fees and he's better off financially due to the repayment thresholds.
I think the truth is just it depends.
For someone who becomes a charity worker on £14k a year, or only works part-time, or becomes a housespouse.... both systems work out the same, the education turns out to have been free.
For someone with a salary in the low to mid twenty thousands, the new deal is clearly a nicer way to start off in life. But for those who work through professional progression into the higher rate tax band, the higher fees will not be paid off nearly so quickly as the old ones so the lifetime effect is more noticeable.
So it's worse for people on higher incomes? Isn't that the whole bloody point?
I think some people need a reality check on what most graduates actually earn these days. I have a STEM degree from a red-brick university and work for a multi-billion dollar American corporation. I graduated 4 years ago and I earn 27,000 a year. My friends from the same university also doing STEM degrees earn in the region of 25,000 - 35,000.
For most people, the 9k 'loans' are better and won't ever be paid off.
My loan has actually increased since I graduated as the interest has been higher than my repayments.
I find it extraordinary when I read about average wages. I have two persons [ both women ] work in our warehouse. They earn approximately £25k each.
No wonder, we have very little staff turnover. 27% of our employees have been in the company for more than 20 years. Sometimes, I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Of course, as a result, we have very little recruitment costs, both in money and time.
The site where I work has historically also had very little staff turnover. A good 80% of the office has worked for the company more than 10-15 years.
The downside is that the technology/IT used is piss-poor, mainly due to people being unaware of what others company's are doing. It's a "this has always worked so why change?" philosophy.
It's obviously worked to this point and I'm really in no position to criticise but I find it very frustrating.
We spend a lot on IT. Recently changed over to SAP and Microsoft Dynamics. Plus Skype for business , webinars etc. has become commonplace. Number of "meetings" therefore have gone down.
Ironically, the best [ small ] investment we made during our office refurbishments was installing ready boiling water taps. So no hanging around waiting for the kettle to boil ! You would not believe the increase in productivity.
Cynical Jack - lets see what they say after the visit
I try not to be but I'm struggling to give the PM the benefit of the doubt, which is unlike me. It smacks of damage limitation but I'm happy to be proved wrong.
It's always difficult to get the toothpaste back in the tune, Jack, but no harm in her trying.
We spend a lot on IT. Recently changed over to SAP and Microsoft Dynamics. Plus Skype for business , webinars etc. has become commonplace. Number of "meetings" therefore have gone down.
Ironically, the best [ small ] investment we made during our office refurbishments was installing ready boiling water taps. So no hanging around waiting for the kettle to boil ! You would not believe the increase in productivity.
We still use a command-line version of JD Edwards!
He's tolerated as the House Tory because his of his unorthodox views (see also PR)
A shame he's blind to the fact that he's being manipulated to push a meme of a party divided (which it is to an extent, but not down his lines)
Is David Herdson one PBer you would be happy to extinguish a fire on if he were ablaze, as opposed to another PB you recently deemed unsuitable for saving from death by burning?
Just asking .... so the site fire fighters might be on hand.
I said no such thing. I said I wouldn't run back to him with an opinion.
Kindly retract that untruth.
GeoffM Posts: 5,149 June 16 AlastairMeeks said: » show previous quotes Get back to me when you can count to 326.
I wouldn't "get back to you" if you were on fire, to be honest.
Exactly. Many thanks for going back and getting that. He wanted me to get back to him with an opinion on the seat numbers and I declined to bother under any circumstances..
Point proved and his apology is awaited.
Again, cheers for getting the original comment back. Appreciated.
I'd stop digging if I were you. Do you have shares in JCB?
As I said at the time it was a "classy remark" given recent events.
Eh? Scrapheap has just proved me right in black and white.
Still, it's the Queen's Birthday Bank Holiday weekend here and day 2 of the tuna season. Those fish won't catch themselves and I've got a new fighting chair to test out.
Back later to scroll through the rest of the thread and look for your apology.
I think you're seeing black as white.
I wouldn't look too hard for an apology or you'll get a nasty dose of the scrolls to add to your acute dimwittedness.
My girlfriend is a NHS Speech Therapist and therefore did not pay tuition fees. She only received maintenance loans.
She is no better off financially having not 'paid' tuition fees and will likely never pay off her loans either.
People earning 100k+ in London might feel hard done by paying 9k loans but for us out in the provinces it's a different story.
There's so much mis-information about on this issue and I wish that the coalition had 'branded' this change better instead of scaring people by the amount of 'debt'.
You are better off in the short term, but paying 9% extra for the rest of your working life is a big disadvantage, particularly when you apply for a mortgage.
I don't think it's right for nearly 50% of young people to start off their lives with a debt which most of them will never repay. On a related topic, the growth of all kinds of consumer debt (cars, personal loans, credit cards) is yet another lever to increase the inequality of wealth. It will not end well.
Perhaps Mr Heath and Mrs Thatcher were wrong to deregulate credit with such abandon.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe that there is any soft Brexit option that can 'bring people together' and that 'we can all be comfortable with'. Voting to leave the EU meant leaving the SM. Over 65% of the UK public want FOM to end, and SM membership is incompatible with this.
What May (and Corbyn lets remember) are proposing is the only option - leave the SM but try and do a deal to maintain a decent relationship. The error is in thinking that we can have a 'soft Brexit' if we choose one - we are not negotiating against ourselves. I sometimes wonder what sort of compromises people think can be made that will ensure a 'soft Brexit'? I think, sadly, the answer is really to accept FOM again. This is not going to bring the country together, it will cause chaos.
The reality is that the only option is to negotiate in good faith and hope that a deal can be done and plan for the possibility that it cannot. There is NO deal on offer that can be accepted, so saying that 'no deal is not an option' is not reflecting reality at this point. At some point in the negotiations, we may get to this, but the current EU position cannot be accepted so unless it is improved there will be no deal.
Lets be serious, if Remain had won by 52/48 we would have had exactly the same problem - they
EU membership is a binary choice and thus divisive. People who think that it is not a binary choice (e.g. all the soft Brexit crowd) are going to find out on Monday that this is not a reality.
Painful as it is, the referendum was the only way to resolve this issue and the will of the majority has to be enacted.
Absolutely correct. Theresa's biggest blunder - by a very long chalk- was allowing the Hardest-of-Brexit crowd to take over proceedings. This is a fringe faction even within the euro-sceptic movement, let alone the public at large. Remainers were, of course, horrified and deserted the Tories in droves, whilst most Leavers were left feeling distinctly queasy. Theresa should have assured the nation that she sought 'a Brexit we can all be comfortable with'. Uniting these multitudinous strands of public opinion would have been a demanding project to be sure, but that's what great leaders are supposed to attempt. Pandering to the fringe is naive short-termism and ultimately doomed.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
I think the Queen has been magnificent in this crisis with her speech today and minute's silence. She seems to be in tune with the Nation and it is good to see the residents attending Church vigils and cancelling a demonstration.
It is also good to see the Government has sent a task force to Kensington to co-ordinate the Council and Governments response.
If the hot heads can be kept in control, the residents have a very good chance of being heard and helped
The red mob raised its ugly head but has slunk when confronted by the Monarch.
Contrast with the claims here that's he's whipping up riots.
Did he really need to mention cremation when he talked about the cost of burials?
If Theresa May makes that mistake there will probably be riots
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
We lost among 35-50 year olds as well. All of my friends who are in the 27-33 range are looking to buy, but most are unable to raise enough money for deposits because rents are so high. As always you're completely clueless.
Max, the issue isn't really BTL per se (the private rental sector plays an important role, and the numbers aren't that huge).
The problem with house prices is driven by low mortgage rates and low yields on alternative investments. The other issue - this is a London one, but anecdotally I believe it is spreading out - is driven by foreign investors using London property as a store of value and not even bothering to let them out.
Solution is to add a premium (say 2-3% p.a.) to the cost of a BTL mortgage. Hypothecate the money to a fund that is dedicated to building social housing for rent.
Foreign owners of home (let's say non UK tax resident as a basis) pay an annual premium of 15% of the value of the home that is paid into the same social fund
Housing benefit should also be reformed. No short term contracts available: councils (or the social housing fund) should enter into long-term contracts (say 10 years +) at a small premium to current rates. So, if you can borrow at 3%, for example, you can be paid 3.5% as a guaranteed income from the State. If you limit loans to 90% of value for houses in this segment, it gives equity providers a guaranteed 5% pre-tax return on their equity [pretty close to the underlying risk free rate].
Exempt the social housing fund from planning permission requirements (obviously not building regs). Properties are built and managed centrally (by an arms length fund). Also support council building of homes for local provision on a matched fund basis. Also have ability to finance institutional money building homes for let on a long-term basis as per the above.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
In regard to the fire, the buck stops with Kensington & Chelsea council, for the renovation works and their response to the fire. Had it been a Labour run council, this Tory Government would have been all over this like a rash.
In regard to the fire, the buck stops with Kensington & Chelsea council, for the renovation works and their response to the fire. Had it been a Labour run council, this Tory Government would have been all over this like a rash.
In regard to the fire, the buck stops with Kensington & Chelsea council, for the renovation works and their response to the fire. Had it been a Labour run council, this Tory Government would have been all over this like a rash.
The story is still extremely unclear e.g. The Mail reports today that the plans that were submitted to all the relevant authorities contained the panels that don't go up in flames, then a sub-contractor fitted different ones.
If that is the case I am not sure how the council are at fault, if they were presented with plans, they checked them against all the relevant standards and then somebody goes ahead and fits something different.
It is right we have a public inquiry and that the matter is properly investigated.
In regard to the fire, the buck stops with Kensington & Chelsea council, for the renovation works and their response to the fire. Had it been a Labour run council, this Tory Government would have been all over this like a rash.
The story is still extremely unclear e.g. The Mail reports today that the plans that were submitted to all the relevant authorities contained the panels that don't go up in flames, then a sub-contractor fitted different ones.
But do the panels meet all relevant building regulations?
That's the difference between breach of contract and criminality.
Contrast with the claims here that's he's whipping up riots.
Did he really need to mention cremation when he talked about the cost of burials?
If Theresa May makes that mistake there will probably be riots
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
I think it was just a slightly thoughtless comment - in any other circumstances talking about "burials and cremations" would be entirely reasonable. But you are right about the double standards that would be applied to May.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
The transition measures cut both ways as the accession countries also had time to adjust their economies before being fully open within the single market. I don't think applying restrictions retrospectively would be viable, especially in the current circumstances where the EU has no incentive to offer concessions.
Contrast with the claims here that's he's whipping up riots.
Did he really need to mention cremation when he talked about the cost of burials?
If Theresa May makes that mistake there will probably be riots
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
I think it was just a slightly thoughtless comment - in any other circumstances talking about "burials and cremations" would be entirely reasonable. But you are right about the double standards that would be applied to May.
I agree, I don't think Corbyn was being provocative, just thoughtless. Clive Lewis on the other hand was being a complete idiot.. for one thing, if there were some neo liberalists in the building, his tweet would have been even more offensive than it already is
In regard to the fire, the buck stops with Kensington & Chelsea council, for the renovation works and their response to the fire. Had it been a Labour run council, this Tory Government would have been all over this like a rash.
The story is still extremely unclear e.g. The Mail reports today that the plans that were submitted to all the relevant authorities contained the panels that don't go up in flames, then a sub-contractor fitted different ones.
But do the panels meet all relevant building regulations?
That's the difference between breach of contract and criminality.
As I say, the situation is unclear and all the speculating from the media and all these conspiracy claims of cover-ups being like Hillsborough are extremely unhelpful.
In general, the UK has a good system when it comes to properly investigating these kind of things and I am confident that in time any flaws in regulations and / or dodgy goings on will be exposed.
As I simply pointing out that saying well this must be the councils fault is far from certain. If they assessed the plans properly, they met the regulations and then somebody used different materials (that externally look the same) which was the ultimate cause of the disaster*, it is hard to say the buck stops with them.
I think the Queen has been magnificent in this crisis with her speech today and minute's silence. She seems to be in tune with the Nation and it is good to see the residents attending Church vigils and cancelling a demonstration.
It is also good to see the Government has sent a task force to Kensington to co-ordinate the Council and Governments response.
If the hot heads can be kept in control, the residents have a very good chance of being heard and helped
Contrast with the claims here that's he's whipping up riots.
Did he really need to mention cremation when he talked about the cost of burials?
If Theresa May makes that mistake there will probably be riots
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
I think it was just a slightly thoughtless comment - in any other circumstances talking about "burials and cremations" would be entirely reasonable. But you are right about the double standards that would be applied to May.
Not quite sure how else he could have phrased it. Surely 'disposal costs' wouldn't have been acceptable.
Contrast with the claims here that's he's whipping up riots.
Did he really need to mention cremation when he talked about the cost of burials?
If Theresa May makes that mistake there will probably be riots
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
I think it was just a slightly thoughtless comment - in any other circumstances talking about "burials and cremations" would be entirely reasonable. But you are right about the double standards that would be applied to May.
Not quite sure how else he could have phrased it. Surely 'disposal costs' wouldn't have been acceptable.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
The transition measures cut both ways as the accession countries also had time to adjust their economies before being fully open within the single market. I don't think applying restrictions retrospectively would be viable, especially in the current circumstances where the EU has no incentive to offer concessions.
It would not apply to free movement of capital, goods and services but just free movement of people and labour. The EU does not particularly want tariffs and WTO rules with the UK but is prepared to accept that to preserve the single market but letting the UK impose the controls on free movement most other EU nations imposed from 2004 to 2011 but which the Blair and Brown governments did not may be something they would accept to avoid WTO rules without compromising the principles of the single market
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
Sorry Max but this is very silly, if there's no private rental market then where do you suggest that those who are unable or unwilling to buy for their own personal reasons should live instead?
A few weeks after my wife (then girlfriend) and I started daying we moved in together. We found a property to rent and then later in our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend once we knew we were happy to commit to each other long term we found found an affordable property (new build) to buy and later we got engaged, married, then had children.
Had I suggested instead of moving in together renting that we commit to buy a property instead then I think that would have come on very strongly and our relationship may not have progressed past that point.
For us there was a functioning and affordable rental and purchase market, that is what is needed. We don't need to smash one functioning market because the other has flaws.
Solution is to add a premium (say 2-3% p.a.) to the cost of a BTL mortgage. Hypothecate the money to a fund that is dedicated to building social housing for rent.
[snip]
Housing benefit should also be reformed. No short term contracts available: councils (or the social housing fund) should enter into long-term contracts (say 10 years +) at a small premium to current rates. So, if you can borrow at 3%, for example, you can be paid 3.5% as a guaranteed income from the State. If you limit loans to 90% of value for houses in this segment, it gives equity providers a guaranteed 5% pre-tax return on their equity [pretty close to the underlying risk free rate].
Exempt the social housing fund from planning permission requirements (obviously not building regs). Properties are built and managed centrally (by an arms length fund). Also support council building of homes for local provision on a matched fund basis. Also have ability to finance institutional money building homes for let on a long-term basis as per the above.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
If you actually read what I said, it's not tinkering around the edges.
For the sake of numbers, take 5m houses as per your above. Assume they are worth £165,000 (less than the average cost of a home) and financed with 90% mortgages. That's £150,000 per house = £750bn of mortgage debt against the houses. At 3% that is £22.5bn taken from the BTL sector and pumped into social housing.
Assuming an average build cost of £100,000 per home - that would fund 225,000 houses per year. Additionally, if the fund can unlock private sector capital (through low cost loans to pension funds to get involved in the sector) then
The issues you will have is managing the impact on bank balance sheets of a decline in house prices in the sector.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
There's no reason for people earning good salaries and renting privately not to vote Conservative. But they are disproportionately young, urban and minorities. Maybe that's the cause of dissension instead of housing tenure. Even apoliticaly, it seems unsound to want lots of young single people to start buying their own properties (as opposed to young families, who clearly benefit from tenure stability).
Two reasons to start. First, it may reduce density and increase demand for housing units, unless the mortgaged people become own-house BTLs in turn, which is risky. Second, at a time of historically low unemployment and interest rates, many people who want mortgages would be vulnerable to any weakening of the economy, and a single earner losing their job at a young age could be badly damaged in the eyes of credit extenders.
Contrast with the claims here that's he's whipping up riots.
Did he really need to mention cremation when he talked about the cost of burials?
If Theresa May makes that mistake there will probably be riots
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
I think it was just a slightly thoughtless comment - in any other circumstances talking about "burials and cremations" would be entirely reasonable. But you are right about the double standards that would be applied to May.
Not quite sure how else he could have phrased it. Surely 'disposal costs' wouldn't have been acceptable.
In regard to the fire, the buck stops with Kensington & Chelsea council, for the renovation works and their response to the fire. Had it been a Labour run council, this Tory Government would have been all over this like a rash.
The story is still extremely unclear e.g. The Mail reports today that the plans that were submitted to all the relevant authorities contained the panels that don't go up in flames, then a sub-contractor fitted different ones.
But do the panels meet all relevant building regulations?
That's the difference between breach of contract and criminality.
If they do meet standards (which the press comments I saw said they did) they'll still get done for corporate manslaughter / contributory negligence, especially if it was a breach of the contract put in place between the owners and the master contractor
The story is still extremely unclear e.g. The Mail reports today that the plans that were submitted to all the relevant authorities contained the panels that don't go up in flames, then a sub-contractor fitted different ones.
If that is the case I am not sure how the council are at fault, if they were presented with plans, they checked them against all the relevant standards and then somebody goes ahead and fits something different.
Did wonder about this - it seemed implausible that planners would seek crazy, dangerous savings of 5k from a budget of 10 mill. However, take it down the chain of contractors, and it's a larger % of the budget.
However, shouldn't inspections check the components used?
The headbanger Leavers need to decide quickly whether they are ready to unite behind a new leader that implements a rather more limited version of Brexit than they'd hoped for, or whether they prefer to enter into civil war and let Jeremy Corbyn implement Brexit according to his preferences. There simply isn't the Parliamentary majority for the headbangers to insist on everything they want.
Fake "options".
Get back to me when you can count to 326.
I wouldn't "get back to you" if you were on fire, to be honest.
@Tony Boris doesn't come across as a genuine and sincere though. Look at the way he behaved during EUref.
@NickPalmer McDonnell calling for people to take to streets in order to facilitate May's resignation is encouraging disorder. Corbyn should have reined him in. May needs to go, but not by mob rule.
I think the Queen has been magnificent in this crisis with her speech today and minute's silence. She seems to be in tune with the Nation and it is good to see the residents attending Church vigils and cancelling a demonstration.
It is also good to see the Government has sent a task force to Kensington to co-ordinate the Council and Governments response.
If the hot heads can be kept in control, the residents have a very good chance of being heard and helped
Sorry Max but this is very silly, if there's no private rental market then where do you suggest that those who are unable or unwilling to buy for their own personal reasons should live instead?
A few weeks after my wife (then girlfriend) and I started daying we moved in together. We found a property to rent and then later in our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend we found a property and started renting. Later we found an affordable property (new build) to buy and later we got engaged, married, then had children.
Had I suggested instead of moving in together renting that we commit to buy a property instead then I think that would have come on very strongly and our relationship may not have progressed past that point.
For us there was a functioning and affordable rental and purchase market, that is what is needed. We don't need to smash one functioning market because the other has flaws.
Max is entirely right.
Your point 'where do you suggest those unable or unwilling to buy should live' is quite disingenuous. If there are 7.5m people renting privately, how many of them do you think would jump at the chance to buy if they were able to? If we take students out of that equation, about 90% I'd guess.
Owning your own place is cheaper than renting, allows you to save for the future by building up equity, gives you greater control over your circumstances. A landlord can kick you out or raise rent at any time.
Yes, a small number of people may be highly mobile and prefer to rent. But the vast majority would prefer the stability and security of ownership, combined with building equity.
The other big point is that people become Conservative once they become property owners.
Once you have a few bricks and a patch of grass that's yours, you become a lot more invested in the system and in keeping hold of what's yours. You feel secure enough to settle down and start a family. You have kids. Who you hope to pass something on to.
Once you become a homeowner, you realise that the socialism espoused by Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk is all about taking away from people - people like you.
Thatcher understood that people became Conservative voters once they were homeowners, once they had family they hoped to pass something on to.
I find it incredible that the modern Conservative party has forgotten this, becoming the party of BTL landlords, the party that wants to dementia tax your home away from your kids / grandkids.
Build more and let people pass their homes on to their families. It ain't rocket science.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
Why do you immediately assess a proposal in terms of whether or not it will benefit the Conservative Party? This is precisely where our political system has gone wrong for very many years.
Sadly, I think this makes my point - transitional controls are just FOM with a small grace window. So, to get a 'soft' Brexit, we have to concede FOM? It simply can't happen.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
You want to "smash the rental sector"? And this is your plan for winning Conservative votes?
@Tony Boris doesn't come across as a genuine and sincere though. Look at the way he behaved during EUref.
@NickPalmer McDonnell calling for people to take to streets in order to facilitate May's resignation is encouraging disorder. Corbyn should have reined him in. May needs to go, but not by mob rule.
Boris's standing will improve the further we are from the eu ref date. Post an agreement the current loathing he provokes in remainers will dissipate.
If brexit is seen as successful he'll be lauded, disaster and the blame will hang around his neck.
His future is intrinsically tied to how the negotiations pan out.
My girlfriend is a NHS Speech Therapist and therefore did not pay tuition fees. She only received maintenance loans.
She is no better off financially having not 'paid' tuition fees and will likely never pay off her loans either.
People earning 100k+ in London might feel hard done by paying 9k loans but for us out in the provinces it's a different story.
There's so much mis-information about on this issue and I wish that the coalition had 'branded' this change better instead of scaring people by the amount of 'debt'.
You are better off in the short term, but paying 9% extra for the rest of your working life is a big disadvantage, particularly when you apply for a mortgage.
I don't think it's right for nearly 50% of young people to start off their lives with a debt which most of them will never repay. On a related topic, the growth of all kinds of consumer debt (cars, personal loans, credit cards) is yet another lever to increase the inequality of wealth. It will not end well.
Perhaps Mr Heath and Mrs Thatcher were wrong to deregulate credit with such abandon.
I come from a shipbuilding family. It has always puzzled me why my late grandmother's stated main reason for her dislike of the Tories was that "they encouraged young people to get into debt", which she viewed as a great evil, rather than any of the more obvious industrial and social issues!! (She was a very devout non-conformist, I wonder if her minister had ever given staunch warnings about debt and the devil in any of his sermons?)
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
They were transitional. The transition has finished transitioning. I'd be very surprised if the EU agreed to discriminate against its fully transitioned members like that.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
You want to "smash the rental sector"? And this is your plan for winning Conservative votes?
Jesus.
He maybe on to something, the voters hate freedom.
A large portion of the SNP must be embarrassed by their party's name and 1930s European far right origins. They should rename themselves the Scottish Independence Party or some such.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
Why do you immediately assess a proposal in terms of whether or not it will benefit the Conservative Party? This is precisely where our political system has gone wrong for very many years.
I disagree with the Switzerland resident frequently, but in this case MaxPB is 100% correct. The country has become a gerontocracy clinging to positive-equity property like Gollum to the Ring. Young families can't buy houses with close access with green space for the kids to play. In the 60's and 70's, even poor people had that.
I think the Queen has been magnificent in this crisis with her speech today and minute's silence. She seems to be in tune with the Nation and it is good to see the residents attending Church vigils and cancelling a demonstration.
It is also good to see the Government has sent a task force to Kensington to co-ordinate the Council and Governments response.
If the hot heads can be kept in control, the residents have a very good chance of being heard and helped
Agreed, once again in tune with the public.
She learnt in a hard school
Not as hard as it could be - monarchies across the world, throughout all time but the twentieth century accentuated it more than ever, have generally faced the choice between "remaining in touch with your people" or becoming an ex-monarch ... and more likely than not, an ex-person. Judging from the numbers who did end up with their back against the wall when the revolution came, it seems this was either a very tricky lesson to learn, or that monarchies are naturally poor learners (not necessarily thick, more likely too well-insulated).
The British monarchy is a quite remarkably adaptive and responsive institution. One thing that it seems good at, is preserving its institutional memory and learning from past mistakes. I wonder how many feelers they have, out "on the ground"? It doesn't seem to me that Her Majesty judges the mood of her people merely by reading newspaper headlines.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
They were transitional. The transition has finished transitioning. I'd be very surprised if the EU agreed to discriminate against its fully transitioned members like that.
Why? There is absolutely no reason the UK cannot impose restrictions on migrants from Eastern Europe for 7 years in the same way almost every other EU nation did for 7 years and indeed the UK would have a strong legal case too to 'cash in' those restrictions now which Blair failed to impose in 2004
But the three times convicted homophobic racist domestic abuser accompanying Ruth Davidson in Ochil & South Perthshire during the campaign is OK?
Tarring with the same brush is only to be applied to 'nats' (non Union Flag waving variety), Marxists, Corbynites, lefties, protestors, activists, SJWs, snowflakes and various other subversives beyond the pale.
Otherwise the Right would have to take responsibility for e.g. the racist trolls that applauded immigrants and Musilims dying at Grenfell, and that would be ridiculous. Obviously.
Sorry Charles, but the numbers are massive, there are around 5m properties in the private rental sector which means around 7.5m people are living in privately rented accommodation. That is 7.5m people who are pre-disposed to not vote for us. We need to smash this sector and get as many of those people onto the housing ladder as quickly as possible. Tinkering around the edges as you suggest will see Jez or someone like him walk into Downing St on the back of 24-50 year olds breaking decisively for Labour as they feel stuck in privately rented accommodation, paying off someone else's mortgage rather than their own.
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
Why do you immediately assess a proposal in terms of whether or not it will benefit the Conservative Party? This is precisely where our political system has gone wrong for very many years.
I disagree with the Switzerland resident frequently, but in this case MaxPB is 100% correct. The country has become a gerontocracy clinging to positive-equity property like Gollum to the Ring. Young families can't buy houses with close access with green space for the kids to play. In the 60's and 70's, even poor people had that.
The diagnosis is correct but the prescription is epically insane. The solution is to repeal the planning laws so people can build houses. But the voters won't agree to that because they're invested in the ponzi that MaxPB is trying to suck more young people into.
Cannot see the sense of May continuing. Best it were done quickly. Conservatives would be better just being a minority government without any agreement with anyone. What is going on with the DUP is a gross embarresment.
Sadly, I think this makes my point - transitional controls are just FOM with a small grace window. So, to get a 'soft' Brexit, we have to concede FOM? It simply can't happen.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
No transition controls restrictrd FOM for 7 years, the UK would be perfectly entitled to impose them though if the UK demands to end FOM for evermore then inevitably the EI could not go that far and we would have to leave the single market completely. Given the fact the Tories failed to get a majority for hard Brexit and ending free movement completely and leaving the single market completely though the British people are clearly looking for some form of compromise
The discussion on here over FOM shows more than ever that Brexit consists of the UK negotiating with itself until it exhausts all of its non-existent options. The EU just has to be patient.
Cannot see the sense of May continuing. Best it were done quickly. Conservatives would be better just being a minority government without any agreement with anyone. What is going on with the DUP is a gross embarresment.
Agreed. But the Labour party should not attempt to take over, either as a minority government, or by forcing an early General Election. They should avoid the hospital pass and just let the Tories dangle as we hit Brexit and a probable recession. This should cure many people from voting Tory for a generation, and enable a more hopeful future for the many not the few.
Sadly, I think this makes my point - transitional controls are just FOM with a small grace window. So, to get a 'soft' Brexit, we have to concede FOM? It simply can't happen.
The best solution would be to 'cash in' the transition controls on free movement which Blair failed to introduce in 2004 but which the likes of Germany kept for 7 years until 2011, it would be difficult for the EU to argue those were incompatible with a good degree of single market access given they have already allowed them before
Sooner or later the hypothesis that people want to end FOM even at the expense of crashing the economy will need to be tested. I believe we are headed towards some type of 2nd referendum in order to break an impending impasse.
Your point 'where do you suggest those unable or unwilling to buy should live' is quite disingenuous. If there are 7.5m people renting privately, how many of them do you think would jump at the chance to buy if they were able to? If we take students out of that equation, about 90% I'd guess.
Owning your own place is cheaper than renting, allows you to save for the future by building up equity, gives you greater control over your circumstances. A landlord can kick you out or raise rent at any time.
Yes, a small number of people may be highly mobile and prefer to rent. But the vast majority would prefer the stability and security of ownership, combined with building equity.
The other big point is that people become Conservative once they become property owners.
Once you have a few bricks and a patch of grass that's yours, you become a lot more invested in the system and in keeping hold of what's yours. You feel secure enough to settle down and start a family. You have kids. Who you hope to pass something on to.
Once you become a homeowner, you realise that the socialism espoused by Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk is all about taking away from people - people like you.
Thatcher understood that people became Conservative voters once they were homeowners, once they had family they hoped to pass something on to.
I find it incredible that the modern Conservative party has forgotten this, becoming the party of BTL landlords, the party that wants to dementia tax your home away from your kids / grandkids.
Build more and let people pass their homes on to their families. It ain't rocket science.
Students are not the only people who are mobile. Those who have started new jobs, relationships, single people who would like to move in with a future partner etc are too. Where do you want them to live if there's nowhere to rent? Not everyone is in a happy, healthy, stable relationship and can commit to being in the same place indefinitely.
I'm not disputing that home ownership is a good thing to be encouraged but it's not right for everyone. The rule of thumb I've always believed in is that of five years. If you expect to be in the same house for five years or more you're better off buying. If you expect to move again within five years you're better off renting. A lot of people don't know where they'll be or who they'll be woth in two years let alone five. They need a home too even if later in life a mortgage will work for them it may not yet.
I rented until last year when we finally bought a place (just outside London) at the age of 38 and 39. In all honesty, it wasn't *that* much of a stretch. We could probably have done it a few years earlier, and we managed it without resorting to any sort of dodgy shared ownership scheme or any help from parents etc. So, contrary to the prevalent stereotype, really not too much of a struggle, and we're not massive earners either.
It isn't that difficult if you're open-minded and flexible - people think they have a divine right to live in Zone 1/2 which is just unsustainable bollocks. (And the mere existence of social housing in there expensive areas just fuels the division in my view - should all be scrapped).
Importantly, at no point during all the years renting did I ever think 'Cor, those Tories really have it in for people like me, I'd better vote Labour!' But, apparently, as a private renter I was supposed to think like this - why? Again, contrary to the received wisdom but I'm interested to know why this should be the case.
Secondly, I consider there to be a marked difference between somebody with wealth buying a property outright (and choosing to let it out in order to receive an income), and BTL mortgages where the tenants effectively buy the property for the landlord. I have no problems with the former, whereas the latter I find morally objectionable.
If you own a property, virtually all income from letting it is clear profit, so you're far more likely to go easier on the tenants. However, if your in debt-to-the-hilt with BTL mortgages, it's natural to want to 'earn' something, because you psychologically more or less disregard the paying-off-the-capital component, therefore you charge rent at a higher level than the mortgage repayment which causes rental inflation and the perverse situation we've had for a few years where buying is not only cheaper in the long-term but in the immediate term too.
Possibly not what the Marxists want to hear, but if would be better if the private rental market was dominated by a small number of the substantially wealthy with a broadly benevolent mindset, rather than a large competitive battleground of the middle classes shitting on those slightly below them in the social strata, exploiting every small edge and building modest empires on favourably secured debt.
The discussion on here over FOM shows more than ever that Brexit consists of the UK negotiating with itself until it exhausts all of its non-existent options. The EU just has to be patient.
Transition controls are not a non-existent options as the EU has already imposed them it is just Blair did not take them up, the hung parliament makes it more likely that some compromises can be made over Brexit
Comments
Best outcome for Tories as follows.
Keep TM till end of brexit negotiation.
Which will be some fudge on FOM for workers + cash in return for market access.
TM becomes the lightening rod for leaver anger.
Hand over to more charismatic leader, election in 2020.
https://twitter.com/JournoStephen/status/876015885970026496
Point proved and his apology is awaited.
Again, cheers for getting the original comment back. Appreciated.
As a result, if May hangs around for a few more months David Davis is likely to emerge as the successor, because it will be clear that we need someone to stand up to the EU's demands which will be increasingly seen as unreasonable. He will be the safe pair of hands.
No wonder, we have very little staff turnover. 27% of our employees have been in the company for more than 20 years. Sometimes, I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Of course, as a result, we have very little recruitment costs, both in money and time.
Average age of first marriage for men used to be 24 in the '70s, now it's 32. People have also much less front-loaded lifetime income expectations now that further and higher education is more common - so deposit building takes longer. There's no way to make those numbers work in a way that doesn't lead to a lot less home ownership and a lot more demand for BTLs than in the '70s.
As I said at the time it was a "classy remark" given recent events.
It's a view.
The downside is that the technology/IT used is piss-poor, mainly due to people being unaware of what others company's are doing. It's a "this has always worked so why change?" philosophy.
It's obviously worked to this point and I'm really in no position to criticise but I find it very frustrating.
My point was just that the new system has both winners and losers - and the losers are the higher-earners, which is probably where most of us agree it should be.
As for the spread of graduate incomes - from elite universities (LSE, Oxbridge) more than 10% of graduates are earning £100k+ after 10 years...though the average graduate salary in creative arts across all universities was found to be no higher than for non-graduates, and salaries for communications and agriculture graduates were below £20k. Even more damningly male graduates at the 23 low-rank universities earn less than non-graduates so for them university seems to have been a waste of time and energy (and funding)... (Apologies for not linking to the original IFS report, just remembered the press stories at the time. Suspect the study itself would be an interesting read.)
So there's a big disparity there, and those different groups will have been affected very differently by the changed structure.
It is also good to see the Government has sent a task force to Kensington to co-ordinate the Council and Governments response.
If the hot heads can be kept in control, the residents have a very good chance of being heard and helped
https://twitter.com/labourlewis/status/875758693693960193
One thing she simply does not understand. The initial mistakes in human reaction cannot be fully rectified.
My girlfriend is a NHS Speech Therapist and therefore did not pay tuition fees. She only received maintenance loans.
She is no better off financially having not 'paid' tuition fees and will likely never pay off her loans either.
People earning 100k+ in London might feel hard done by paying 9k loans but for us out in the provinces it's a different story.
There's so much mis-information about on this issue and I wish that the coalition had 'branded' this change better instead of scaring people by the amount of 'debt'.
I had hoped for so much more from the Prime Minister but sadly even basic competence seems beyond her. She has in many ways become a tragic figure but the nation deserves better and she should exit with as much dignity that she may muster but in double quick time.
Still, it's the Queen's Birthday Bank Holiday weekend here and day 2 of the tuna season. Those fish won't catch themselves and I've got a new fighting chair to test out.
Back later to scroll through the rest of the thread and look for your apology.
The problem with house prices is driven by low mortgage rates and low yields on alternative investments. The other issue - this is a London one, but anecdotally I believe it is spreading out - is driven by foreign investors using London property as a store of value and not even bothering to let them out.
Solution is to add a premium (say 2-3% p.a.) to the cost of a BTL mortgage. Hypothecate the money to a fund that is dedicated to building social housing for rent.
Foreign owners of home (let's say non UK tax resident as a basis) pay an annual premium of 15% of the value of the home that is paid into the same social fund
Housing benefit should also be reformed. No short term contracts available: councils (or the social housing fund) should enter into long-term contracts (say 10 years +) at a small premium to current rates. So, if you can borrow at 3%, for example, you can be paid 3.5% as a guaranteed income from the State. If you limit loans to 90% of value for houses in this segment, it gives equity providers a guaranteed 5% pre-tax return on their equity [pretty close to the underlying risk free rate].
Exempt the social housing fund from planning permission requirements (obviously not building regs). Properties are built and managed centrally (by an arms length fund). Also support council building of homes for local provision on a matched fund basis. Also have ability to finance institutional money building homes for let on a long-term basis as per the above.
A higher earner can voluntarily pay more back if they desire.
What May (and Corbyn lets remember) are proposing is the only option - leave the SM but try and do a deal to maintain a decent relationship. The error is in thinking that we can have a 'soft Brexit' if we choose one - we are not negotiating against ourselves. I sometimes wonder what sort of compromises people think can be made that will ensure a 'soft Brexit'? I think, sadly, the answer is really to accept FOM again. This is not going to bring the country together, it will cause chaos.
The reality is that the only option is to negotiate in good faith and hope that a deal can be done and plan for the possibility that it cannot. There is NO deal on offer that can be accepted, so saying that 'no deal is not an option' is not reflecting reality at this point. At some point in the negotiations, we may get to this, but the current EU position cannot be accepted so unless it is improved there will be no deal.
The total figure is really immaterial. The current system is a capped graduate tax in all but name.
Ironically, the best [ small ] investment we made during our office refurbishments was installing ready boiling water taps. So no hanging around waiting for the kettle to boil ! You would not believe the increase in productivity.
I wouldn't look too hard for an apology or you'll get a nasty dose of the scrolls to add to your acute dimwittedness.
I don't think it's right for nearly 50% of young people to start off their lives with a debt which most of them will never repay. On a related topic, the growth of all kinds of consumer debt (cars, personal loans, credit cards) is yet another lever to increase the inequality of wealth. It will not end well.
Perhaps Mr Heath and Mrs Thatcher were wrong to deregulate credit with such abandon.
http://wittukgroup.co.uk/grenfell-tower-london-w11-1tq-regeneration-project/
Without wanting to be another PB Moderator, is it really beyond people to refrain from using fire/smoke/burning related metaphors/similies when discussing this? I cant help thinking those that do are just trying to be provocative
In purely economic terms it is a sector that has a poor multiplier because private landlords, on the whole, spend very little on the properties they rent and overall it is money flowing from younger working people to older non-working people. I don't see how we can win as a party until we are on the side of the former rather than the latter.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/extended-brexit-transition-now-cards/
If that is the case I am not sure how the council are at fault, if they were presented with plans, they checked them against all the relevant standards and then somebody goes ahead and fits something different.
It is right we have a public inquiry and that the matter is properly investigated.
That's the difference between breach of contract and criminality.
In general, the UK has a good system when it comes to properly investigating these kind of things and I am confident that in time any flaws in regulations and / or dodgy goings on will be exposed.
As I simply pointing out that saying well this must be the councils fault is far from certain. If they assessed the plans properly, they met the regulations and then somebody used different materials (that externally look the same) which was the ultimate cause of the disaster*, it is hard to say the buck stops with them.
* we don't even know this yet.
A few weeks after my wife (then girlfriend) and I started daying we moved in together. We found a property to rent and then later in our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend once we knew we were happy to commit to each other long term we found found an affordable property (new build) to buy and later we got engaged, married, then had children.
Had I suggested instead of moving in together renting that we commit to buy a property instead then I think that would have come on very strongly and our relationship may not have progressed past that point.
For us there was a functioning and affordable rental and purchase market, that is what is needed. We don't need to smash one functioning market because the other has flaws.
For the sake of numbers, take 5m houses as per your above. Assume they are worth £165,000 (less than the average cost of a home) and financed with 90% mortgages. That's £150,000 per house = £750bn of mortgage debt against the houses. At 3% that is £22.5bn taken from the BTL sector and pumped into social housing.
Assuming an average build cost of £100,000 per home - that would fund 225,000 houses per year. Additionally, if the fund can unlock private sector capital (through low cost loans to pension funds to get involved in the sector) then
The issues you will have is managing the impact on bank balance sheets of a decline in house prices in the sector.
Two reasons to start. First, it may reduce density and increase demand for housing units, unless the mortgaged people become own-house BTLs in turn, which is risky. Second, at a time of historically low unemployment and interest rates, many people who want mortgages would be vulnerable to any weakening of the economy, and a single earner losing their job at a young age could be badly damaged in the eyes of credit extenders.
However, shouldn't inspections check the components used?
@NickPalmer McDonnell calling for people to take to streets in order to facilitate May's resignation is encouraging disorder. Corbyn should have reined him in. May needs to go, but not by mob rule.
Your point 'where do you suggest those unable or unwilling to buy should live' is quite disingenuous. If there are 7.5m people renting privately, how many of them do you think would jump at the chance to buy if they were able to? If we take students out of that equation, about 90% I'd guess.
Owning your own place is cheaper than renting, allows you to save for the future by building up equity, gives you greater control over your circumstances. A landlord can kick you out or raise rent at any time.
Yes, a small number of people may be highly mobile and prefer to rent. But the vast majority would prefer the stability and security of ownership, combined with building equity.
The other big point is that people become Conservative once they become property owners.
Once you have a few bricks and a patch of grass that's yours, you become a lot more invested in the system and in keeping hold of what's yours. You feel secure enough to settle down and start a family. You have kids. Who you hope to pass something on to.
Once you become a homeowner, you realise that the socialism espoused by Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk is all about taking away from people - people like you.
Thatcher understood that people became Conservative voters once they were homeowners, once they had family they hoped to pass something on to.
I find it incredible that the modern Conservative party has forgotten this, becoming the party of BTL landlords, the party that wants to dementia tax your home away from your kids / grandkids.
Build more and let people pass their homes on to their families. It ain't rocket science.
Jesus.
If brexit is seen as successful he'll be lauded, disaster and the blame will hang around his neck.
His future is intrinsically tied to how the negotiations pan out.
The British monarchy is a quite remarkably adaptive and responsive institution. One thing that it seems good at, is preserving its institutional memory and learning from past mistakes. I wonder how many feelers they have, out "on the ground"? It doesn't seem to me that Her Majesty judges the mood of her people merely by reading newspaper headlines.
Otherwise the Right would have to take responsibility for e.g. the racist trolls that applauded immigrants and Musilims dying at Grenfell, and that would be ridiculous. Obviously.
Writing frightening verse, to those who don't want rule from Luxembourg"
I'm not disputing that home ownership is a good thing to be encouraged but it's not right for everyone. The rule of thumb I've always believed in is that of five years. If you expect to be in the same house for five years or more you're better off buying. If you expect to move again within five years you're better off renting. A lot of people don't know where they'll be or who they'll be woth in two years let alone five. They need a home too even if later in life a mortgage will work for them it may not yet.
I rented until last year when we finally bought a place (just outside London) at the age of 38 and 39. In all honesty, it wasn't *that* much of a stretch. We could probably have done it a few years earlier, and we managed it without resorting to any sort of dodgy shared ownership scheme or any help from parents etc. So, contrary to the prevalent stereotype, really not too much of a struggle, and we're not massive earners either.
It isn't that difficult if you're open-minded and flexible - people think they have a divine right to live in Zone 1/2 which is just unsustainable bollocks. (And the mere existence of social housing in there expensive areas just fuels the division in my view - should all be scrapped).
Importantly, at no point during all the years renting did I ever think 'Cor, those Tories really have it in for people like me, I'd better vote Labour!' But, apparently, as a private renter I was supposed to think like this - why? Again, contrary to the received wisdom but I'm interested to know why this should be the case.
Secondly, I consider there to be a marked difference between somebody with wealth buying a property outright (and choosing to let it out in order to receive an income), and BTL mortgages where the tenants effectively buy the property for the landlord. I have no problems with the former, whereas the latter I find morally objectionable.
If you own a property, virtually all income from letting it is clear profit, so you're far more likely to go easier on the tenants. However, if your in debt-to-the-hilt with BTL mortgages, it's natural to want to 'earn' something, because you psychologically more or less disregard the paying-off-the-capital component, therefore you charge rent at a higher level than the mortgage repayment which causes rental inflation and the perverse situation we've had for a few years where buying is not only cheaper in the long-term but in the immediate term too.
Possibly not what the Marxists want to hear, but if would be better if the private rental market was dominated by a small number of the substantially wealthy with a broadly benevolent mindset, rather than a large competitive battleground of the middle classes shitting on those slightly below them in the social strata, exploiting every small edge and building modest empires on favourably secured debt.