To think Corbyn's maths is wrong again

[Rebeccaslicker]

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/28/jeremy-corbyn-announces-labour-will-buy-every-homeless-person/amp/

How is this going to work? Does he mean "give" as in legally transfer or does he mean no rent? How does he think the houses are going to be maintained and utility bills paid? Is it fair on people who've been on waiting lists? Is it really going to reduce the numbers of homeless people if it becomes seen as a quick way to skip the queue?

I got back to my car in an NCP the other night, to find 5 homeless people right next to it with foil and needles. They were also going through some wallets (which may well have been their own; I didn't stop to check of course). The state of them was very sad and although I did feel intimidated at first, I also didn't report them because I thought, where else would they go - it's chucking it down. But then again, no way would they be able to look after a house. They were like zombies.

He's absolutely right to want to do something about the homeless situation. There should be more lots more help. But I don't think this is the answer. AIBU?

If he is really clever he will appoint a guardian for every child, to make sure the parent isn't abusing them. Just like Sturgeon has done.

I imagine the more intelligent and sane Labour MPs are keeping their heads down whilst the Corby/Momentum circus continues with their lies and nastiness. I read this weekend that councils are fighting back against Momentum and refusing to go along with the undemocratic re-selection policy.

All those youthful voters who believed in his lies about getting rid of student loans must be pretty disillusioned now .......

One if the things I think that the Tory party have done right is to work with shelter to help homelessness.
Giving the homeless a house will not help them. People choose not to use shelter here, leaving hostels with spaces.

It's not a complex problem. There are solutions but they would impact on the rich and those with unearned wealth who support the Tories/nu Labour.

The solutions are;

• Build millions of social homes on council land (yes, there is money for this, just divert the £25 billion housing benefit bill rather than giving it to private slumlords and stop giving the housebuilders billions of pounds via Help to Buy). These become revenue generating and are an asset.

• End Right to Buy - this is a no brainer.

• Reduce the amount that can be lent to 3 or 4 times income so that we don't have a massive housing bubble and don't get another financial crisis (all so that the banks can make more money by printing money from thin air). i.e. (a credit bubble caused by the deregulation of the financial sector).

• Make sure the Private Rented Sector is properly regulated and that all landlords are registered so they are not avoiding tax and that tenants rights are upheld. Give better protections, rights and tenure to tenants.

• Introduce a Land Value Tax so that houses are not encouraged to be built and left empty until land values rise. At the moment builders distort the market.

The Tories just don't care. Most Tory MPs are landlords and are rich with several houses so it is in their interests to have high rents, high house prices and never-ending immigration to fill said houses. They also get the votes of the older generation who have benefited from house price growth.

I like him, and think this is a really good idea. Housing First have been calling for something similar for a while.

The cost of this, compared to other measures that have been very real in recent years, like the bank bailout, is tiny.

cutting
Absolutely. Well said.

"All those youthful voters who believed in his lies about getting rid of student loans must be pretty disillusioned now ......."

Er, you do realise he's not actually in power, don't you? So he can't enact policy?

And also, data suggests there wasn't a big youth turnout - about the same numbers of young people voted as usual, though more of them voted for Corbyn. The sway demographic may actually have been those in their 30s and 40s. Anecdotally, my friendship group (artists, writers, academics, most of whom have doctorates) would bear this out.

bab
By reducing the amount lent does rather force people into renting when they could afford to buy. That smells of if I can't have it neither can you.

The charity I volunteer with has just this week put out a warning/public notice that some local drug addicts/dealers, who have social housing, are laying out a spread of sleeping bag and a few sorry-looking possessions in doorways, because they have realised that they don't even need to be present for well meaning folk to donate money or items. They just come by every so often and scoop up the latest takings and spend or resell to their more destitute peers accordingly.

It's not a complex problem. There are solutions but they would impact on the rich and those with unearned wealth who support the Tories/nu Labour.

Absolutely.

There is nothing complex about Tory hatred and greed.

It is an ideological hatred of those they think are beneath them.

If any of this goes into a manifesto for labour, all the Tories will do is trot out the ' magic money tree' line and turn people off voting for labour.
They just love shooting themselves in both feet rather than having proper facts and figures and less bonkers policies ( not a Tory by the way)

user1497357411

YANBU. Corbyn is an old fuddy duddy. He is out of touch with real life. I look at him and think "Can you even figure out how to write an email?"

Is bag not an ageist comment :s

That

magic money tree

Plenty for Branson. Plenty fot Stagecoach.

All politicians are shit .... at least this one has morals.
Everyone says they agree with him but that’s it’s impossible and yet no one has even let him bloody try.

I love the way that on Mumsnet, any policy with any kind of social conscience is instantly portrayed as unrealistic or unachievable. Whereas the far vaster sums that are involved in things like the bank bailout, Brexit, quantitative easing (which IS a magic money tree) and warfare are treated as completely realistic.

Time and time again, this site reveals a staggering lack of even the most basic knowledge of economics and the way that policy is used to mould an economy.

He is a sandal wearing guardian reader!

If it's so simple Babooshka, why didn't the last labour government do it? They were too busy letting immigration rise without first installing the right sort of infrastructure! (I am very pro immigration but I think we dropped a massive hairy bollock in not looking at housing, transport, doctors, schooling etc.)

It's far more complex than that, and you know it.

• you're assuming that the housing benefit bill would cover building all those houses. Or have you got stats to demonstrate that?

• will the money also cover the new infrastructure that is needed? If you're planning to use council land in cities etc, how will they cope? If you're talking about rural land, what are you providing?

• what replaces the commercial properties that you're having the council convert to resi? Where does that money come from? How does the council raise the same money that it got from letting those properties?

• what do you think will happen if BTL landlords, or people who've moved and can't sell or don't want to sell because they are coming back, can't let their houses?

• how are you planning to recover the loss of tax on rental income from private landlords and the sales of BTL etc?

You'd risk a significant loss of income for the treasury and a housing crash.

The problem is that you're trying to dismantle a system that's now very well entrenched. The fallout would be immense.

Tories stand for greed and hatred. Lots of people vote for this as they believe this is the ' best way' to run a country - keeping the big companies going and the CEO's getting richer. I don't agree with any of this, but JC and momentum saying that everyone can ' have everything' just plays into their hands I;m afraid.
They need proper policies - real facts, real money spreadsheets - a manifesto that is realistic and can be put across as feasible and doable. If we start hearing about the ' money tree' then it will be game over i;m afraid. The Tories are good at soundbites and hammering home things, labour are not.
A big ask, but its going to be the only way to win anything. Just my opinion of course. ( a new leader might help, sooner the better)

Its not unrealistic or unachievable if the other half of the job is costed and implemented - the extensive and difficult support needed to get the sick homeless back to a normal life.

It is not just a matter of requisitioned houses. As that is all corbyn mentions, he looks to be a fool who doesn't understand the issue. If he isn't, he needs to discuss the full plan.

I doubt anyone's social conscience extends to volunteering to have a drug den nearby.

Homeless people are not zombies.

Would free houses for the homeless create many drug dens? Are they really capable of looking maintaining their own property? Are we talking free council tax, free electricity, free water, free gas, free appliances and free everything else that is needed for have your own house? Its not really thought through is it?

Some of them are very capable and have had a shit hand dealt to them.

Some of them are so far gone that they really only care about drugs. You should see the state of the car park where I had to park again this morning, make, before you comment on things you just don't understand as you haven't seen them for yourself. Seriously. Needles underfoot so you really have to watch your step. Foil everywhere. Filthy sleeping bags and bags and bags of rubbish piled up against the walls. The man who shuffled right in front of my car and all the way down the vehicles only entrance ramp had absolutely no idea what was going on. He needs proper help, not a free roof and no more. But what do you do when people won't take that help?

The whole point of the argument is that someone who is addicted to drugs is far, far more likely to stay addicted to them if they don't have good housing. The idea is that you need to provide some degree of stability, over some time, to help people turn around lives that have often been marred by abuse or injury. Asking people to sort themselves out before they "earn" a house is putting the cart before the horse.

This is a really horrible, meanspirited thread. And I'm sick of reading pronouncements about the relative economic literacy of various policy positions by people who don't have the most basic idea how an economy works.

Well whisky - feel free to demonstrate yours. Because I haven't seen an ounce of it in a single one of your posts yet. So off you go - dazzle us.

And I disagree the thread is meanspirited. Nobody is saying that more shouldn't be done to help. We are saying that Corbyn's plea for votes is illthought out and won't give the help that's needed. For example if he'd talked about building and staffing hostels with actual support, rather than just vaguely "buying houses and giving them to the homeless", or if he'd gone into detail about how the scheme would work and be fair to others in need of housing, it might have made more sense.

But don't let inconvenient facts get in the way of your desperation to be caring AND left wing when you're setting out your brilliant economic vision, will you?!