The Labour Party are bloody hypocrites

[prestatynprlck]

I think Angela rayner has got a nerve to start slashing the right to buy when she has profited from it, is she going to give the money back then that she pocketed from this scheme when she sold her house? I have always been a labour supporter and I am as working class as they come but I am so angry about this. I am not denying that the right to buy policy has its issues but it's just tinkering around the edges of the housing crisis and ignoring the real issues. I may be slightly emotional about this as I live in a one bedroomed council flat that I was planning on buying next year, my only hope of probably ever owning a property. Instead, if and when I choose to have children and I am overcrowded, they will now have to rehouse me themselves instead to a bigger property and I will now probably be a lifelong council tenant. Fabulous. Why are they targeting the people at the bottom? I can't support them anymore sadly.

Or have had possibly had a really sad and tragic life and for that I am sorry OP. I had to live with my parents until I was 24 and could afford to rent privately

Yes, not enough free stuff, it's so unfair. You have a degree, an income and a secure tenancy. You are doing well. Do a bit more learning and ask who's paying for your heavily subsidised housing. And think a bit harder and be glad you don't own the flat. Plenty of flat owners are stuck with maintenance issues - eg removal of cladding. Window replacements for whole block - that cost thousands of pounds they don't have. And can't sell. You are very fortunate.

YABU you can keep saving into your lifetime ISA and pay your way like other people your age have to do! Yes you may have to wait until you're in a couple, lots of people have to do that. I can't believe you even qualify for council housing earning 30k, most people on that sum are privately renting. And right to buy should have been scrapped decades ago, I thought it already had. Someone in far greater need than you should have your flat when you move out, why would you want to take away from other people who could benefit like you have. There are kids living in B&Bs.

Is it hypocritical just because you don't like it? Governments stopping bad policies is surely a good thing? I personally am pleased that previous governments changed rules to allow rights for women, gay marriage, Claire's law etc. I guarantee people in these very governments voted against and benefitted from voting against them in the past.

I live in a maisonette so no issues with cladding or anything like that.

I don’t agree with right to buy. I’m sorry you are missing out OP because it is a great deal for the individual tenants.

The flat next to yours (for example) could’ve been bought by the council tenant years ago. Sold by that tenant, making them or their children a nice profit and now it’s being rented out at market rate.

The current tenants living in the flat, your next door neighbours potentially, pay a lot more than the rent you pay, but they can’t afford it, so they claim universal credit to help towards the rent. So the taxpayers pay a portion of the rent to the private landlord and the tenants are trapped in a cycle of insecure expensive private rents due to the lack of social housing.

I agree more should be done to free up under occupied social housing homes, and more should be built too, but selling off the houses half price without replacing them with new stock has absolutely contributed to the current housing crisis.

That's excellent OP, even less to complain about.

Really feel for you it's hard to have your plans suddenly change.
But do you feel you've benefited from being able to have a council house - and don't you want other people to be able to benefit too?
I totally get the frustration of not being able to afford to buy (same experience) but pretty much everyone is in that position right now - lots of us in worse in the private rented sector. We need to see more policies so that everyone can own their own home.

The flat below me must have been bought under right to buy as it is privately owned and there is a couple and three children living in there. I'm not sure how much they are paying but I don't think they work so they are probably claiming housing benefit.

She won't provide any
It's just xenophobic drivel.

My 28 year old daughter daughter lives with me. Saving up for a flat. Yes she also has a first class degree. It’s how it is if you don’t have housing from the local authority.

I'm guessing it's been authoritatively documented by that great newspaper of record, the Daily Mail

Or by Nigel Farage.

@prestatynprlck
You do realise that if you buy your council flat it means that someone else in your situation can't ever have it? It will be gone from the social housing stock forever. Like anyone else you have to save a deposit for a place of your own. I hope your mum can get a swap to a smaller place and then a family can benefit.

I'm still reeling at the claim that Labour sells off the nation's assets. In what alternative timeline? If you can name one they sold off, I'll name you at least 3 that Conservatives handed over to the private sector for peanuts. Anything Thatcher didn't get round to selling, Osborne had a go at.

I thought RTB was staying - but with a 25% discount. Which is still a massive discount.

And that's the irony of it all. The tax payer pays for the flat to be built, the council tenant buys the flat at a huge discount, rents it to a tenant who claims housing benefit and the tax payers pay the fucking rent! You couldn't make it up!

I can understand you feeling frustrated at missing the opportunity to buy but this policy has contributed massively to the housing crisis we currently have and should never have been implemented in the first place.

If my private landlord decided to sell and I could afford to buy there's no way I would get it at a reduced rate, even though I've been paying their mortgage for 15 years. 50% off market value was always ridiculous - how on earth can you replace housing when you're selling them off at half their worth?

We need more social housing, not less.

Except the OP just has made it up: I don't think they work so they are probably climbing housing benefit.

The Labour Party are hypocrites, you’re right about that, but why do you think you’re entitled to a 50% discount on a flat just because you were lucky enough to be offered a decent council one to rent?

The right to buy scheme is fundamentally unfair and divisive so should have been scrapped years ago.

Yep. People in my building would probably assume that I don't work when I actually work full time, I wfh most of the time so I'm in the flat all day dressed in joggers and a hoodie.

With three small children under about 5 in a one bedroom flat I doubt they are working from home somehow!

Recent case, close relative. Relative, long-term tenant on benefits, can't afford 'right to buy'. BUT, the rules allow somone who has 'lived with them for 3 years', to use their funds to buy (in tenant's name). So, 'grandson', after 'pretending' to live there for required 3 years, provides funds to buy council house. The 3 bedroom council house in Manchester, is bought (using maximum 70% discount) for £21,000. They wait another 3 years (to preserve 70% discount). House is then transferred from 80 year old tenant to 'grandson'. 80 year old then moves into care home; £1,000 a week paid for by taxpayer (because they have 'no assets') ! Former council house is then rented out to tenants on 'housing benefit' - paid for by taxpayer. Kerching !

Thatcher's policy of selling council houses to council tenants but forbidding councils to use the money to replace these houses was disastrous for the majority of working class people because the amount of council house stock diminished making it much harder to be allocated a social home.

Over 40% of homes sold under Margaret Thatcher's right to buy scheme are now in the hands of private landlords.

OP is already lucky being allocated a council house and she wants to take that opportunity away from another family in need.

Labour has always been against right to buy. It isn't something new.

Things are definitely free ….. to some people, like Angela Rayner selling her ex-council home, fudging the situation and avoiding tax. Or one of the recipients of Lord Ali’s largesse (free glasses, suits, football tickets, accommodaton, holidays, birthday parties) or Keir Starmer living rent free in No 10. How about Taylor Swift’s free blue light police convoy to Wembley (cost the British tax payer £150,000 but free to her, save coughing up for lots of freebies for lefty politicians).