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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 February 2007 |
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Mustn`t personalise it. Yet Social Home Buy, whether it comes from Ruth Kelly or Stanislaw Poniatowski, former King of Poland, is insane.
We have a housing crisis. People might like to buy. Since they can`t afford to they want publicly provided property to rent.
Instead of building it government throws petrol on the flames by key worker support, pushes housing associations into Right to Buy schemes they don`t want and suggests social tenants should have 10% ownership. It won`t give it them as it should or even total ownership. That will be given only to RSLs.
Shut up Ruth. We`ve failed to build the social housing we need. Either make that good. Or stop talking rubbish.
Interest rates up. Inflation down. So much for the unique skills of inflation hawk, Mervyn King. But still the City is clamouring for higher rates.
As Socialism dies, capitalism becomes over-confident.
In the Eighties it destroyed our basic industries. In the nineties profits became the obsession and everything was sacrificed to it: pensions, safety (BP), integrity, employment, standards.
In the twenty-first century foreigners were allowed to take over the wreckage because we were most exposed to globalisation, our workers had less protection and the City made huge profits from selling the silver.
We`ve not only invited disaster. We`ve sat it at the centre of power and treated it as the ultimate wisdom. Foreign ownership means British redundancies come first (see Puegeot), British research is shed first (see Pilkington), British interests count for less.
Perhaps we`re mad. Perhaps France, Germany and others wouldn`t do it. Perhaps it will lead to disaster. Perhaps we need a viable opposition.
My granddaughter, Maisie, goes to the new Charter School in Dulwich. So she should – unless her surname is Blair.
Last week she was picked out as Gifted and Talented (G&T) under the government`s daft new scheme.
She was also hit by a bottle thrown from a walkway in the playground.
Nothing has happened on either count. |
