this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
22 points (100.0% liked)

UK Politics

4158 readers
150 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 7 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Based.

People won't like it, but this is absolutely the right decision for the country.

Either don't sell them, or sell them for full market value and put any profit into a fund to build more council houses.

[–] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

sell them for full market value and put any profit into a fund to build more council houses

This is probably the way to go, because then the Tories won't be able to run on 'Bring Back Right To Buy'.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Unfortunately I fear they could force councils to sell for less than market value again, then sit back and relax as the media fellate them for being so kind to the poorer people in society (whilst completely ignoring the wider societal problems that causes)

[–] Mex@feddit.uk 6 points 9 months ago

I was talking about this to someone the other day and I think some sort of rent-to-buy scheme might make sense. They can still buy their hosues but instead of being helped by a discount they are helped by building up equity in the house?

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Originally, council housing was supposed to be available for everyone.
A socially funded, reasonably priced, decent accommodation for anyone.
With the added bonus for the council that they have properties vulnerable people could be housed in at cost.

And there are still legacy tenants from those days happily living in their council places.

R2B was brought in, with the stated idea of giving long-term renters the opportunity to buy at a discount.
A leg up onto owning and running their own house.
Unfortunately with the way it was implemented, it ended up gutting the supply of council houses, until we reach today.
Where only the most vulnerable have a sniff of a chance of being allocated a council house.

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Unfortunately with the way it was implemented, it ended up gutting the supply of council houses, until we reach today.

Not, Unfortunately. This was openly the Tory plan.

They spent the 1970s arguing that council housing was unfair competition on the private sector. And as such by their ideals harmful to the economy.

R2B was originally set up to reduce the supply of council housing. This was why thatcher banned Local auths from using sales revenue to invest in new council housing.

[–] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah, if I was in charge I'd build council housing for the rich, too (like the Barbican). Then the money currently going on rent and mortgages could be better invested elsewhere!