Should David Cameron be allowed to rent out his London home?

[LilyBolero]

David and Samantha Cameron are renting out their Notting Hill home, reportedly for an income of 72k annually. They are only able to do this because they are provided with a London home (Downing Street) at the taxpayer's expense. Should this be allowed? Should they have to pay rent on Downing Street? And should he still claim to be a member of the 'middle classes'?

My answers;
Yes, this should be allowed, IF they pay rent on Downing Street.
and
NO he should not claim to be a member of the middle classes!

Hufsa, yes but he didn't earn the majority of the money that enabled them to afford the house, his wife did. Would you want your partner's job to negatively affect you if you were the higher earner?

Bonsoir - you're not taking into account that the public purse is significantly funded by corporation tax, ntional insurance (which is mostly capped so paid in %age terms more by lower and midle income earners) VAT etc.

In fact only 30% of total tax revenue comes from income tax so its a bit misleading to say 25% of people are funding 75% of people. Way more complex - probably more like 25% of people are funding 25% of people the rest are funded by VAT, NHI and CT. And its probably not even that simple...

Getorfmoiland - they apparently don't have a mortgage on the London house, but have been claiming 21k a year from expenses for their Oxfordshire house.

They don't have a mortgage on their London home because they took out a larger mortgage on their constituency home and, at the same time, paid off their (admittedly quite small) first home mortgage. The interest on their constituency home is, as you rightly point out, paid for by tax payers... All within rules and so on but a bit of a cheap trick to play from a man who is(a) very wealthy (b) made a stink about the various expense claims shenanigans of others.

Are the wealthy not allowed to operate within the rules tehn? (from someone not at all wealthy)

Yes, of course the wealthy are allowed to operate within the rules but it's not within the spirit of the rules. It's particularly irksome coming from a man who claimed he wanted to stamp out the abuse of second-home allowances in parliament.

And who is making it much harder for the poorest in society to stay in their homes, via reducing the housing benefit. But, hey, "We're all in this together".

Should Joe Public from Garston be allowed to rent out his family home because his employer supplies him with premises as part of his job?

The house belongs to the Camerons, bought with earnings from employment that they no doubt paid tax on, in what way is it any of your business?

Both David & SamCam wanted to stay in their own home, but were effectively forced to move to Downing Street as it would have cost the taxpayer £1m a year in security had they stayed. They are therefore living in Downing Street - a far inferior flat to their luxurious house - because they have to, not want to, to save the taxpayer money. So, IMO, of course they should be allowed to rent out their house.

Regarding whether or not he is middle class - yes, he is text book upper middle class. There is an enormous difference between lower middle class and upper middle class - which presumably is why some people can't understand why he calls himself middle class (as I guess they are comparing him to people more at the lower middle class end) - but, from what I have read about his background, he is definitely upper middle class, not upper class.