if you can't outthink myleene klass then your not ready to become one of the most powerful people in the world

[lhldn]

I'm talking about red ed on ITV's the agenda. Myleene wasn't particularly good, I mean she said you couldn't even buy a garage for 2 million in London and while London is expensive , its not that expensive.

To me it looked like a bunch of rich snobs complaining. If you can live in a 2 million house no way will I feel sorry for you. Now the bedroom tax, that is disgraceful.

So if you can defer the payment if you are elderly what happens when a new gov comes in and cancels this tax. Do they still need to pay?

I think the bedroom tax was ok, why should someone perhaps living on benefits be living in a house that has spare bedrooms. If I lost my job we would need to move. I wouldn't be complaining that I was entitled to live there because I had been here for the last x number of years and it was near my kids school and my Mum was around the corner.

Well my London mansion (a scruffy 3 bed terrace in zone 2 which needs loads of money spent on it) is only worth getting on for a million, so hopefully I won't be affected any time soon .

I will vote for whoever sorts out the absurd situation where billionaire foreign investors are buying up swathes of London property and causing untenable knock-on house price inflation.

Where does myleene live then?

Always thought she's not as clever as she thinks when she complained that poor people in central London couldn't afford the congestion charge.

@handcream

I think the bedroom tax was ok, why should someone perhaps living on benefits be living in a house that has spare bedrooms

Really? What about in domestic violence cases like this? What about those who need the spare room for equipment related to the cars of a disabled or sick relative? What about those who can't move to a smaller property because smaller properties simply don't exist?

Read this and see if you stil think it's ok.

There are "poor people" living within the congestion charge zone. My friend lives in a council flat in zone 1. Plenty of council property in Kensington & Chelsea too.

I read that article audeca. I can see that there are certain cases where the application has been unduly harsh, or that some households in some areas may genuinely not have anywhere smaller to downsize to.

That doesn't mean tho that I think it's unfair in general that those who have the privilege of living in a bigger property than they need should be expected to pay something towards it. The are 500,000 households who are subject to the "bedroom tax". It's perfectly justified in the vast majority of cases.

I hate this because it's just another step along the road of viewing properties purely as a financial asset and not as people's homes.

This isn't going to bring down the price of housing for those who are currently priced out because if it lowers any prices at all it will be at the top end of the market and will mean that a few hedge fund managers can pick up a few bargains from people desperate for a quick sale because they can't pay and they're desperate to sell up.

Labour simply don't have the guts to do something that would be genuinely redistributive and bring down the price of housing. If they did they would have the guts to tax second homes and to tax expensive houses at the point of purchase which would mean that people who actually had disposal cash were being targeted.

This law is dreadful, they're trying to give the impression that they're attacking the super rich when they know damn well it's barely going to affect the super rich but is much more likely to hurt people who are relatively ordinary.

The end result of this is that London is going to become more and more cleansed of everybody except the super rich.

Well done on missing the point!

Of course there are poor people in zone one but if they were poor then they wouldn't drive as one of the best public transport systems in the world. People living in zone 1 are except anyway aren't they?

This isn't going to bring down the price of housing for those who are currently priced out because if it lowers any prices at all it will be at the top end of the market

Disagree with everypoint 100%. But to pick out your worst it will lower prices with a ripple affect and reduce the attractiveness of london property as an investment.

It took me roughly two minutes to do a rightmove search and establish for myself that houses- even in central London- worth more than £2m are not ordinary, humble little homes. They are large, multiple bedroomed houses or very luxurious flats in exclusive areas. They don't look to me to represent the life savings and worldly goods of impoverished little grannies, or of hard working families on £42k a year.

Surely if you are 'poor' and living on a £2m home the obvious thing to do is to sell it?

Is this mansion tax problem really a problem outside wealthy pockets in the UK? I can't think there will be many laying thus tax in scotland.

The bedroom tax is one if the nastiest and stupidest taxes ever. i can't beleive anyone would back it.
www.housing.org.uk/media/press-releases/bedroom-tax-some-home-truths/
500,000 households affected, 95,000 smaller properties available in a typical year (and nearly 1million on the waiting list for them)

So if no one else gets one 4/5 of over occupiers have no where smaller to go and have to find another £1000 from their low incomes even if they'd want to move.

Meanwhile businesses like mine have been given a random £2000 pa tax cut we didn't ask for and don't need - it'll just increase my profits by £2000.

www.gov.uk/government/news/employment-allowance-boost-for-business-bill-introduced-to-parliament

"Surely if you are 'poor' and living on a £2m home the obvious thing to do is to sell it? "

Well yeah.

They have no hesitation in telling the poor that if they can't afford rent in their area, they should move 300 miles away.

Different rules for people with assets though, isn't it.

This is one of the most sensible taxes, hopefully it will slow house price growth in London over time (you can bet they are unlikely to rise the threshold for this tax alongside the average house price growth-just look at stamp duty).

Houses should be homes.

Mylene tore Ed Milliband a new one. She wasn't coming out with anything particularly earth-shattering. Just the kind of points I hear mentioned at work, or down the pub. The £2 million level is a huge red herring. Within a decade, many people in the SE will be hitting it.

I cannot for the life of me, understand why people would put a cross next to a Labour candidate, knowing Milliband would be PM. It defies belief! Ed got pasted by Mylene Klass on national TV. How's he going to negotiate our EU rebate? How will he deal with Putin?

If anyone still has delusions of Ed's adequacy... Take a look at this interview.

I've never been so frightened by the prospect of a Labour government.

"500,000 households affected, 95,000 smaller properties available in a typical year (and nearly 1million on the waiting list for them)"

But those figures are misleading. Thy don't take into account all of the 100s of 1000s of flats which are currently overcrowded and whose tenants could and should be swapping with the under-occupiers.

You might not like the bedroom tax ( who does?) but to call it unfair or stupid or nasty is just ignorance.

What's fair or kind about single people like my mother living on their own in 3-bed houses when there are children living down the road sleeping 3 to a bedroom, or battered women and children living in B&Bs because there are no houses for them to move to?

Would 100% back a tax on second homes or investment properties, but it just seems wrong to tax someone's home-home. You've already paid a whacking pile of stamp duty, council tax, tax on the wage or savings (interest- ha!) or inheritance that enabled you to buy that house. It's not right in my view that you should pay an ongoing tax on something that has been bought and paid for and you intend to use as your primary residence.

Also this is going to cost shit loads to police and monitor, especially with fluctuations in the housing market. Coupled with the "modest" sums being bandied about, I can't imagine that it will actually be a good source of revenue.

It could also have the impact of people not wanting to improve or renovate period properties, or build new houses, because of the unknown costs at the end of the project.

Myleene lives in North London Palmers Green/Winchmore Hill. There is a millionaires row not far away where the Apprentice house is and sometimes the x factor houses. The people in that street have £2m in loose change. Everyone around lives in houses worth not even half of that.

Actually I can't see too much wrong with the mansion tax, the trouble is most people don't look at the detail. The money made on these houses has not been earned, some houses in London have made more in the last two years than those on average salaries will earn in a lifetime.

I agree though that there are some aspects of the tax that need more thought.

Myleene Klass was quite poor on 'The agenda'. She and others on the panel seemed only capable of viewing the policy through self interest. Red Ed should really have been able to blow their arguments apart. He was calm and reasoned I thought, but perhaps he needs to show more spirit. He is almost allowing himself to be badly treated by all and sundry. To hear Mylene putting him down with such ill thought out arguments was hard to watch.

It will be an absolutely appalling unfair tax. It will tax someone like I am with a massive mortgage and just possibly over the £2m mark who has not had any property appreciation. Someone with £200k after their mortgage is taken off will be taxed who has no savings (I've no savings). But someone with a £500k unmortgaged property who is massively wealthier will not be taxed. It is just full of anomalies. I will certainly fight hard to prove the house is worth under £2m. It will tax full time hard working London professionals paying £30k a year childcare already and who paid 7% stamp duty to buy the place.

Will they tax freeholders or long lease holders?
Will people just be able to split a home into two?
If your home is used for work I think it's exempt.
If you grant a lease over it to a family member that will reduce the value so you could avoid the tax.
There will be a myriad of ways to reduce it.

It will come in at £2m like ATED and soon be down to properties worth £500k.

Also and quite material it will make those who pay most of the country's tax feel disengaged from the welfare state which is a bad move. We've already lost our child benefit. There are all kinds of lawful things I could do to reduce my tax bill like paying into a pension or making my business a company. if the mansion tax comes in my buy in to the welfare state will have been destroyed and I will ensure lawfully I take those measures many others already take to ensure Milliband has less not more of my money in tax.

She's a thicko with no manners, went for the cheap cheers. You can't just point at things and tax them? Yes you can, you muppet. Your water is taxed and nobody gives a shit about your financial woes - they're imagined.

Someone with £200k after their mortgage is taken off will be taxed who has no savings (I've no savings).

You have an asset worth more than £2 million. Yes, a big chunk of that goes back to the bank, but even so can you not understand that still makes you incredibly wealthy compared to the majority of households in the UK?