OMG!! The Council House Giveaway!!

[HeeHiles]

It's IDS again!!

So, if you live in a council house and come off benefits for a year the Tories will GIVE you your council house. Now even though I could benefit from this I still think it's a crazy idea......we need more CH not give them away!!

All for a few votes?? It's that damn Dame Porter all over again!

Anyone think this is a good idea?

[Rainicorn]

What about those who live in council housing but pay full rent and council tax? Will they get a chance to be given their house, or will they have to become jobless for a year or so and get a job again after that to get a house? It's more of an incentive to stop working if that's the case.

[Chippychop]

stupid stupid idea. we don't have enough housing stock anyway. how will this help long term? Maggie should never have sold them off in the 80's (a

[richthegreatcornholio]

Queen

I would consider all of that to come under the same umbrella as A&E and of course I am happy that my taxes support emergency medical care such as those you mention. However, I'm much more likely to have need of elective surgery than emergency. I have in the past for example been diagnosed with a condition in A&E and had the required surgery for that condition privately.

[Arsenic]

Nobody received 84% discounts on houses under RTB simple. (I believe the maximum discount was 50%.) Stop making things up. If you want something to get hoiky and hyperbolic about, the policy proposal under discussion is quite suitable.

There is a whiff of scranger bashing on this thread.

[Arsenic]

Oh Pausing you're always so retro

[ihategeorgeosborne]

Ridiculous house price inflation has a lot to answer for, and selling off the council houses didn't help. Selling off the remaining few will help even less. What the hell are these people on?

[QueenTilly]

Oh, you consider it, do you? Well, no. Long-term intensive care isn't the same department as A&E, and you can't move the goalposts to make your post a possible promise to us.

You have no idea whether you or your children could end up needing major treatment that isn't available privately or of poorer quality privately.

[Arsenic]

I have been trying to subscribe to the Times for an HOUR. They aren't cooperating. Has anyone read the Times article?

[ihategeorgeosborne]

Can't read the Times article Arsenic, as it's behind a paywall. There is this from the New Statesman though.


www.newstatesman.com/jonn-elledge/2015/02/so-iain-duncan-smith-setting-housing-policy-now-god-help-us-all

[Arsenic]

It is a very specific subsection of council tenants, isn't it Pausing? The group that don't work (at all? long term?) but are then able to be bribed into full and fast self-sufficiency by the offer of a house, where previously the offer of a wage didn't cut it.

It doesn't sound like a very large group to me.

[Arsenic]

TY ihate

[paxtecum]

Rich: Firstly, I never ever wish ill on anyone and I'm certainly not wishing ill health on you or your family.
You do sound incredibly naive about life, health and education.
You really do not know what is lies around the corner in life.

I have some very well off friends who have two children. They had planned to educate them privately, but their first child has autism and funnily enough the local village school is far better suited to his needs that the prep school that the second child goes to.

The mother also had private healthcare to give birth. If she had chosen a different hospital that was not attached to an NHS hospital she would have died.

One day you may be very grateful for the NHS and state education.

[PausingFlatly]

"However, I'm much more likely to have need of elective surgery than emergency."

Wow, you really haven't quite understood life, have you?

You don't get to choose or predict getting ill or injured. No matter how much magical thinking you indulge in.

You can be left unable to work again ever, and needing someone else (usually your spouse) to care for you full-time - completely crashing their income as well. Insurance policies only take you so far with this, either for healthcare or continuing care and income replacement. Most try to dump you after a limited period.

This may happen to you today. Even if you don't leave the house.

It is the height of hubris to announce that Special Lil' You is immune from this.

[littlemonkeyface]

I'm currently living in Germany and one of the reasons I log onto mn is to stay up to date with what is going on in the UK. When I saw the OP's post I seriously thought this was a piss-take thread ... obviously not, but then you couldn't really make it up.

IDS = ICH DOOF SEIN

[BunnyFint]

Estimated cost of an adult ITU bed per day in the UK, £1000-£1800. That cost doesn't include the ambulance who treated you on scene, the fire brigade who had to extricate you from your car, the assembled multi specialist trauma team who met you in A and E, tests, scans, surgeries required to treat your injuries, ward bed cost, nursing care, post op rehab, physio, OT and out patient care.

Your yearly tax Rich wouldn't cover the cost of an RTC. One car crash, just one and your yearly tax wouldn't scratch the surface of the costs to all taxpayers, remember that when your spitting froth and clutching pearls.

[Arsenic]

I adore the way in which Rich lists NHS and state education as though they were only services taxes fund.

He'll presumably be benefiting from police when applicable, using motorways, public transport, street lighting, parks, beaches, maybe a mortuary or a cemetery in the fullness of time...

I'm assuming he'd prefer not to be surrounded by litter, crime, uncollected corpses and starving pensioners.

But no, taxation is just an enormous bill for health services and schools

[DontDrinkandFacebook]

I am completely against selling off (or giving) council houses to tenants.

[brandy321]

What about those who live in council housing but pay full rent and council tax? Will they get a chance to be given their house, or will they have to become jobless for a year or so and get a job again after that to get a house?

They are proposing right to buy for all other HA tenants too. This will be the real vote winner in my opinion. Many of us have paid full rent for years and would jump at the chance to own

[BunnyFint]

mn needs an edit button, *you're.

[PausingFlatly]

Well indeed, Arsenic.

And more to the point, a sign of the inadequacy of wages vs housing cost, that IDS doesn't think wages actually cause people to, you know, work.

[PausingFlatly]

"Yes, indeed" again, to your post about all the other services rich is using.

It does get tedious pointing this out to people, doesn't it?

[Arsenic]

Maybe he's a genius in disguise as a buffoon. Pehaps he'll give us all houses. Like a roll-out. Pretty sensible really.

[30somethingm]

We have to vote this lot out! We need more social housing. We mustn't reduce the stock of social housing further. I cannot believe the incompetence of his government. They think this will be a popular decision? I think it is a nail in their coffin.

[WhistlingPot]

Why the fuck should I be subsidising others' children because they can't keep their fucking legs closed?!

Why the fuck are basic wages and the cost of living so fucking outrageous that people cannot afford to fucking do the most natural fucking thing in the world like having a fucking family and produce the next fucking generation to look after us all in our old fucking age? Or god fucking forbid fucking well make fucking mistakes, have contraception fucking fail, or get fucking raped. Fuck.

Fuck, that was cathartic

[Arsenic]

I'm considering a keyboard shortcut