The shifting foundations
Posted on
January 08, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As we noted on Tuesday, Scottish Labour’s opening election salvo for 2016 has been to blame the Scottish Government for unaffordable house prices.
Of the 450 most obvious flaws in that argument, not least the extraordinary efforts a 13-year Labour government went to to keep the housing bubble inflated, the one that caught our eye was that in the past three years we were regularly told of one thing that definitely WOULD bring prices down dramatically, but which Labour pathologically fought every step of the way.
Let’s just remember a few instances.
Phew. Another bullet dodged there, eh? Thanks, Scottish Labour!
Labour: Welcome to the house of fun…madness!
Slab pants, the whole pants and nothing but the pants.
The trick is to take anything Labour say,and then reverse it!!
When it comes to Labour an old quote springs to mind.
‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.’
I would think some places would have risen in value,especially in Edinburgh and surrounds,in what would have been the seat of government and site with most embassies. Here’s what you could have had.
Aw!!! Brilliant, Stu!
Once again Rev you expose the hypocrisy of the Labour party and those institutions who support the Union, I despair of those Scots who still believe we are “better together“.
Labour in Scotland: beyond parody. [Well, almost]
I sometimes wonder how people working for fake Scottish organs like Scottish Labour, the Scotsman,the Daily Record and BBC Scotland can continue to endlessly live the lie and lie endlessly.
It can’t be good for the soul.
Well,hell mend them all.
It is comforting to have the truth on our side.
Ha, you could compile a whole series of these articles – maybe called the PHEW! files? 😉
Rev, you must have one super-duper memory or one super-duper cross-referencing system to make the connection (or maybe it is a combination of both).
This just knocks all the steam out of the latest wheeze from Labour.
“Rev, you must have one super-duper memory or one super-duper cross-referencing system to make the connection (or maybe it is a combination of both).”
Don’t forget the power of an army of alert readers 🙂
Should anyone really be surprised that Labour is attempting to avoid its responsibility for having put the price of houses out of reach for first time buyers.
But then Labour politicians also blame the Scottish Government for the shortage of socially rented housing.
This despite the fact that it was Labour that continued with the Tory right to buy policy which saw Gordon Brown attempt to financially blackmail Local Authorities into disposing of all their housing stock.
Building more than six council houses during their term of office might have reduced the demand pressure on housing. More supply reduces demand side inflationary pressures a long established economic rule.
Giving people £3000 only increases demand side costs, in short it will increase housing costs by about £3000 if not more. Giving builders £3000 for each affordable house might make a difference.
It is getting ever harder to separate SLAB’s deliberate lies from their general stupidity.
Perhaps if they occasionally thought things through before immediately jumping in with SNPBAD, they would not be so utterly despised by the voters they rely on for their jobs.
In Jackie Baillie’s case it normally is deliberate lies. In James Kelly’s case is could be stupidity. With other slabbers it’s probably a mixture of both.
[…] The shifting foundations […]
Is this the Labour Party who only built 6 houses in Scotland during their last term in Scottish Government?
Here are a few words from Labour’s partner in crime, the BBC:
link to bbc.co.uk
Affordability
London remained the strongest performing region for the fifth year running, with average prices up 12% compared with a year ago, according to Nationwide.
But it did not expect house prices in the capital to continue to see above average growth next year, pointing to the fact that property was becoming unaffordable for many in the city.
Average prices in the London are now 50% above their pre-crisis peak in 2007, while in contrast property values in Northern Ireland remain 44% below their pre-crisis peak, despite rising by 6.5% in the last three months of the year.
Across the UK as a whole, prices are around 7% higher, Nationwide added.
Scotland was the only part of the UK that saw a fall in average house prices, with values down 1.9% in the three months to the end of December compared with the same period a year ago.
In summary, we the taxpayer, are buying 2nd homes for Labour MPs who have a main home in London, and just like Flipper Darling,
they are making themselves £Millionaires with values rising at 12% to well over £500,000, and Labour have the audacity to assault the SNP government on rising Scottish House prices, even though our house prices have dropped by 2% and have an average value that is less that 30% of the value of a London House.
I can’t wait to see Labour’s attack on the Westminster Gov’ment
There goes that lying, distorting, sycophantic Labour party again. You know that one that Scots will never vote for again.
Hey Scottish Labour, we will never forget!
I would have thought the drop in house prices a good thing for most people, I feel sorry for the young, and I wouldn’t give a monkeys hoot if my house lost £30k over night due to Freedom, for whatever reason that would be…ooops, forgot, the London bankers will loose some of their billions in bonus
The establishment appeal to peoples’ greed, always. The greedy believe the money talk.
Greed stops the world functioning, and the greedy are killing the planet.
Now I sound like Ken500.
Did I hear that Camoron and giddeon are talking about interest rate rise and raiding folks’ bank accounts due to their sheer mismanagement, to put it politely, of the fckg ukok economy.
Maybe they should raid their own accounts, as a good example.
Ha ha, I love that Wings is here to remind so many people of this two-faced rhetoric from the unionist alliance parties.
This attack on the SNP government is insane!
Let’s pull it apart,
The Labour party quote figures showing the number of people in Scotland aged 16-34 who bought their own home with a mortgage fell from 48 per cent in 1999 to 28 per cent in 2014, with a drop of 15 per cent since the SNP came to power in 2007.
Question why 16, you can’t get a mortgage till 18? The tightened regulatory environment for mortgage lenders since the housing crash means they need to see previous credit to establish credit history, they need to see regular income, contracted employment, not the rise in zero hours contracts.
To quote previous comment from Andrew Montlake, of independent mortgage broker Cobalt Capital, ‘If you’ve got a good credit history, a good job and a deposit of 10% or more then, despite all the scaremongering out there at the moment, getting a mortgage won’t be a problem at all. ‘The reality is that lenders have tightened up their criteria considerably and are only lending to people, or certainly offering good rates to people, they deem to be low risk. ‘What we’re seeing now is a return to how the mortgage market was 10–15 years ago. Mortgages aren’t hard to get, they’re harder to get. And this is no bad thing.’
Are the SNP in charge of mortgage regulation? No Labor made sure they weren’t so why arguing at a situation they caused!
But we also get the infantile argument: “For too many young couples in Scotland today, buying a house isn’t a realistic prospect. A lot of young people are stuck in a cycle from which there appears to be no escape. Yes and if we take the Labour parties position they would have a mortgage that they couldn’t afford, in other words a debt cycle since the house price crash!
So vote Labour and live in debt due to labours ineffective regulatory control over the mortgage market!
But it gets worse for Labour continue..
“They decide to rent a flat to save for a deposit to buy a house, but the rent is too high so they can’t save much for that deposit, which means they continue to pay the high rent for years to come.
“Lots of young people now live at home with their parents well into their thirties as it’s the only realistic prospect of ever being able to save for a house.”
However to quote city lets rental costs from 2008/9 to present, currently almost every single town in the country has underperformed inflation which would be a significant drop in real terms.
So in real terms no such high rent environment exists! So where is the report that Labour relies on? No really where is a report that starts on mortgage lending age 16?
I smell shite! Red Tory Shite!
Labour seem such a joke, especially to Yes folk now. However, we must never forget they were taken seriously by enough uncertain/don’t knows to swing IndyRef!
The lies, double standards, principles for hire, incoherent policies, and worst, putting party and Union before voters and nation, has made them an absolute national disgrace.
FFS Rise and Greens, get out their and take their remain support away from them!
Seriously, they should target the residual Labour support, it’s got to be low hanging fruit ready to be picked.
The usual total and utter lies. Te usual utter tripe from the tax evading Non Doms. There was no housing bubble in Scotland. The housing bubble and fraud was in London S/E and the Midlands. RBS – £1Billion was borrowed in Scotland. Totally affordable. £19Billion was borrowed in the rest of the UK (twice as much pro rata) according to Mathewson.
The Building Societies owned by their members were demutualised by Thatcher. The UK/US banking system – World banking system were deleveraged by Thatcher/Regan & Brown/Clinton from 25% of reserve capital to 13% half. The Banks and government acted irresposible and illegally. Thatcher illegally and secretly took the equivalent of £Billiions from Scotland to build up London S/E – Canary Wharf, Tilbury Docks etc. Thatcher has over 3Million unemployed and interest rates at 15%.
Brown hid the McCrone Report and used the Oil revenues to pay for illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud. Brown actually believed keeping interest rates at 5% abolished boom and bust. While the banks were totally out of control, lending too much money with not enough reserves. Brown was given the best advice money could buy, including from the Govs of BoE and totally ignored it. Brown/Blair should be put in jail. Along with the fraudulent bankers and media. Total crooks.
In Scotland house purchase is easier than it has ever been 3 x joint earning, more available funding and more women work. Prices have stayed in sync for the last 40/50years.
In 1975 a small (new built) semi cost £12,000. Joint (low) income £5,000 – £2,000 deposit. mortgage £10,000 – 25 years (higher interest rate)
Today 3 x average joint income (lower interest rate) £42,000 = £126,000 + deposit = £130,000 Small/semi or flat.
People are buying houses later because of Demographic changes. There are less young people as a % of the pop (pro rata). More young people are in education. People are having children later.
The Scottish SNP Gov has built 5000 houses for rent a year – 30,000 houses. 12,000 other houses are being built a year – 17,000 houses. There are 150,000 people on council lists – 50,000? families. In accommodation but want more adequate/suitable house. There are 54,000 deaths a year in Scotland – 30,000 houses?
30,000 + 16,000 new builds = 46,000 + empty houses. = 50,000?
If the Scottish Gov continue to build 5000 a year. There will be no housing shortage. Scotland is half empty. Scottish planning Law means no enough land for house building comes available. A land Tax? Better or worse?
The Unionists created any housing problems in the UK Another banking cover up by Westminster. Another Inquiry abandoned. The Bankers crooks fund the Tory/Unionist Parties.
Labour..just SHUT UP…
@Ruglonian, 12.34
What about the Fecks-Files?
@galamcennalath says:
8 January, 2016 at 12:58 pm
Even if you had a time machine and could transport residual Labour voters to a prosperous independent Scotland and where England is a Dickensian slum, a fair few of the Labour voters would, upon return, still vote Slab.
Sometimes indoctrination, tribal and self administered ,leads to totally illogical beliefs.
The Tories/Unionists are stopping housing benefit for 18 to 25 year olds. The Scottish Gov will have to step in and sort that out.
It is obvious why first time buyers were reluctant to enter the market since 2007 – A banking crash in 2008 caused by Thatcher/Brown and the rest of the criminals.
Ah Scottish Labour, The same party who continues to say that we must learn the lessons of the past and understand the electorate. Really?
Anyone who witnessed the FMQ’s yesterday watched them deflect and dive 4 TIMES on the issue regarding housing. I can’t imagine anyone watching that performance and thinking Dugdale is a credible leader with what it takes to keep seats for the Labour Party let alone win any new ones.
You’d best come in Scottish Labour .. your time is up!!
Will the SNP challenge these lies in Hollyrood and ask for KD to explain them.
This is an open challenge to labour, your leader Mrs Dugdale states that due to a high rental sector young people cant afford to save for their mortgage. that is a lie!
My evidence wwww.citylets.co.uk/research/reports/pdf/Citylets-Quarterly-report-q3-15.pdf?ref=reports
Where is your rebuttal.
So in fact when Labour built those six houses, they actually built six too many!
Like some SNP Mps, I have a wee property portfolio and what we get for Rent IS definitely dictated by “the Market”
I have a property which is maintained in good order etc but is now valued half of what is was 10 years ago,so its not all roses.
Lets not forget in the “Good old days” Agents and Solicitors were advising purchasers to offer 10 or 20% above the asking/valuation price to secure a purchase! This enabled the inflationary Property boom to happen out of thin air.
Thankfully this has come to an end.
Builder buys land builds houses & sells @ say £100K within a year same house was £125K.Wee minor price changes to build costs but an extra £25K on house price all because of “insinuated demand” by professional advisers ?
Like Donnywho , fail to see what Labour’s £3K is gonna do ?
I’m not sure I want to graft 70 hours a week & pay income tax to give a first time buyer a leg up in the way Labour propose.
Why do we bother Labour have been talking $%%% for years………
My advice would be for Scotland to follow the German model. Germany has the most stable prices and yet the lowest home ownership in Europe, also I might add some of the highest quality homes.
link to macrobusiness.com.au
“The contrast between the German and UK housing markets couldn’t be more stark.
Unlike Germany, the UK housing market is essentially a bubble factory. Whereas Germany’s highly responsive supply ensures that extra demand manifests itself in rising new home construction rather than increased prices, the opposite is the case under the UK’s restrictive land-use policies.”
If you’re a settler from another land you want your house to increase in value so you can sell it for a vast profit and return to your native land richer
So you vote NO to a Nations future you don’t intend to live in and destroy the aspirations of that Nations hopes over the price of a brick
Be careful Labour,
If you keep banging on about house prices and ownership in Scotland, someone from Wings might just post a copy of the time when James Kelly had one of his ‘special moments’
You know the one…, when he asked about house building in Scotland and was told that Labour had only built 6 (six) houses in all the time they were in power
“But that’s no the point!” came the reply,
Oh how we laughed!
So, just for clarity, independence means lower, more affordable house prices and the SNP want independence (see headlines in above article).
Labour and other unionist parties are against independence, meaning the UK treasury can keep house prices artificially inflated, and the continuation of over inflated property prices is somehow the SNP’s fault.
Just one day after the Scottish branch office manager of whats left of the Labour party announced her/their solution to the problem was to hurl even more money at the problem.
Totally illogical, are these people broken?
And we have a hot favourite for the comment of the year award ….
Fairliered says:
8 January, 2016 at 12:41 pm
It is getting ever harder to separate SLAB’s deliberate lies from their general stupidity.
Absolutely brilliant
link to aberdeencity.gov.uk
You wont find any in Aberdeen because SLabour socialist workers like Wullie Young haven’t built any social housing for at least 4 decades.
link to committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk
Wullie’s a landlord rent millionaire lawyer. Anyone shocked by this shocking SLabour news? It just sticks out when you see the pervs at the Heil shriek headlines for SNP property empires.
Labour presided over a stupid housing price bubble and a large reduction in the social housing pool.
They were the problem. The notion that they have a solution when they can’t understand basic principles of supply and demand is laughable.
Germany is in surplus. Germany no longer engages in illegal wars or invasions but invests in the economy. Germany trades and gives aid in the Middle East. Construction, cars? Etc. There are Germans/Companies all over the Middle East. Westminster spends £40Billion in Defence (attack) a year. More on illegal wars. After 11WW Germany was not allowed to re-arm.
£40Billion x 60 years = £2400Billion. That builds a lot of houses.
Traditionally, the rental sector in Scotland was much higher than in England with only approx 30% home ownership. Thatcher changed that by forcing Local Authorities to sell council houses and prevented them from using the money raised to build more housing.
A vital resource was turned into a property developers’ and speculators’ paradise.
Why did Labour do nothing to reverse this policy? Thirteen years in office with a massive majority in 1997, they could have restored so many policies that benefit the people of this country. But they chose not to.
The sub-prime fiasco is a direct result of the deregulation and speculation of the 80s and 90s. Labour and Tories are now incapable of making policy decisions that benefit ordinary people. They pander to the money markets in London then hop onto the boards of Banks and Finance Houses to collect their rewards.
Iceland was right. We should jail these corrupt swindlers.
Apologies – relying on memory here. Will search. But the 1924 Wheatly Act (homes fit for heroes) and the 1930 Greenwood Act are key policy papers designed to address the dire state of housing in the UK.
“A further Housing Act in 1949 enabled local authorities to build houses for the population generally, rather than only for the needy. Some 1.5 million public homes were constructed by 1951.”
link to nationalarchives.gov.uk
You are making the mistake of thinking there is a logical connection between the cost of housing, and house prices. As long as the government can keep interest rates artifically low, bribe the banks to extend riskier and riskier mortgages at ever higher Loan-To-Value and income multiples, and give ever greater bribes to house-buyers, they can keep stoking the house price bubble (which is after all the bedrock of our economy) whilst keeping the cost of housing “affordable”.
I’d like to condense your comment HandandShrimp to one that covers all that Labour preside over:
Labour: Laughable
🙂
Willy Young was trading in ex-council houses before destroying Aberdeen City centre with a grotesque, appalling carbuncle, to spite the SNP. That’s the mentality. Aided by a Green casting vote supporting the ‘status quo’ – the Unionists. Reneging on pedestrianiing the City centre. It is costing £Millions. How it ever got through Planning is a mystery. The Scottish Gov should have called the plans for the absolute mess in. There is still time.
Dipity and Jabba the Hut will be launching an attack on the SNP Government as Scottish Homes are only one third of the value of
London Homes.
Slab will award £350,000 to every Scottish home to bring it in line with London. Each Home will be supplied with a Nurse, a Teacher, a Policeman and an SNP Bads Advisor.
The cost of these policies will be covered by not doing anything to the current sum of money gathered by Air Passenger Duty.
If you vote us into Scottish Government. on these policies, we will then ask the Tories if they would mind helping us out by implement them.
If they refuse we will ask Westminster Labour to class the Slab manifesto as Top Secret, and keep it from public scrutiny for 100 years.
You know where you are with Labour! Anyone got a spare paddle?
“It is getting ever harder to separate SLAB’s deliberate lies from their general stupidity.”
A great summary in one line 🙂
Willy Young owns 8 properties. An interest in Carlton Rock? – not declared. Allegedly. Step down from the Party?
Why can I not go back in time and slap myself for voting for these idiots.
See link…
link to positivemoney.org
A simple solution to house inflation would be taxing the gain made from the day it was bought to the day it was sold.The more expensive the house the higher the tax.The tax could then be used to finance starter homes and property to rent and so on.This would quickly sort out this crazy spiral of ever increasing and unaffordable house values.
@Effijy (2.07)
🙂
Soo-perb.
Willy Young owns 8 properties but does not deride any remuneration. Are they empty?
Good summary of key housing acts here (pdf).
link to tinyurl.com
Includes Wheatly Act (Housing (Financial) Provisions Act 1924) and Greenwood Act from page 10. Kezia should have a read and see what addressing the housing crisis actually entails.
Labour in Scotland are irrelevant to Scottish society and are now having difficulty with credibility.
Nothing with them is based on fact. There is no going back for them. They are finished.
Any property gains are taxed through income. Death duties, Inheritance tax etc. You can’t take it with you.
But of course slabours new policy of giving away cash to housebuyers will soon fix that. Oh wait a minute.
What a bunch of effin turkeys. How did they survive Christmas? Could be that they’re past their sell by date.
Just watched Kezia Dugdale on Youtube from the Revs twitter feed, saying that Labour would hold all 41 Scottish seats in the May 2015 UK General election, after being told polls suggest they would win less than 10.
The woman is clearly insane.
Can someone please ask Dippity under whose watch the housing bubble occurred?
The way Germany worked when I was there over 25 years ago, is that to buy a house people needed a 25% deposit before being able to borrow the rest. So most people including young families were in rented accomodation. The houses were often large, so people would rent one whole level, basement, ground or upper.
The way rented places works is that they were mostly rented bare, no kitchen, no light fittings, no furniture. Can’t remember if they’d have carpets, perhaps. When people moved they took the kitchen and furniture with them.
Furnished rents were rare, you had to look around, try a few agents, even advertise. Some places would have a basement with washing machine, utilities, shared costs or included.
Every Scottish house sold by my firm last year, sold for under the Home Report value & sellers’ asking price. So I can categorically confirm that after a NO vote house prices fell.
If there had been a YES vote, (which is still coming) my opinion is that house prices would (will) surge in Edinburgh, with most countries in the world requiring a new Scottish Embassy, bringing thousands of service jobs to the capital.
Also, Inverclyde (one of our most depressed housing area) will become a boom area, as a Scots govt ensures the removal of Trident opening up the untapped oil fields in the Clyde/West Coast, which oil experts believe hold more oil than the whole of the North Sea has produced to date, including the Norwegian sector. (this is currently off limits as it sits slap bang in the middle of the nuclear subs coming & going from Faslane/ Coulport.
With a new Scots Navy based in Helensburgh, jobs & house prices in Jackie Baillie’s area would actually reach the boom town figures Baillie nonsensically spouts will be lost when we become independent and can get rid of Trident from waters sovereign to the Scottish people.
And did the boss of Zoopla have a wee chat with a Tory pal in central office and suggest his company put out a what if-could happen pile of alarmist crap?
Will Zoopla be held accountable for the panic they caused or swaying a vote?
@Cuilean
Glasgow would also benefit from the embassy market, and probably Aberdeen too as oil is still active, just changing.
The other thing is that companies trading in Scotland would need a Scottish HQ or at least a proper branch office, rather than just trundling up the motorway or flying in for a day or two. That would bring higher level jobs, and hence house purchases.
The conservtive point of view really wasn’t pushed very well, despite the efforts of Wealthy Nation – and Business for Scotland. To my way of thinking Conservatives should in fact have been more interested in voting YES then even ex-Labour voters. And the property sector would have gone berserk with people moving out of Scotland, and more people moving in. I don’t think they really thought things through, they just swallowed the Project Fear line, hook line and sinker. Morons!
The shite coming out of labour never ceases to amaze me. They belong in the dustbin.
Rise,instead of asking for SNP votes get out there and huff and puff and blow the Labour pig sty down.
So Labour’s branch office has decided to attack the SNP over the cost of housing have they? 😉
I have a wee question for them in that case.
Why the hell did you not dump your Tory overseers and join with the SNP to fight for independence. After all all the *ahem* warning signs were there that independence would cut house prices by around £30,000. Surely cutting house prices would make houses CHEAPER would it not? 😉
You want houses to be CHEAPER for first time buyers don’t you? 😉
Therefore it is NOT the fault of the SNP that house prices have not fallen but YOUR fault. YOU should have supported independence because then all houses would have been cheaper and you could return to the plans you have for using the money you will save by NOT cutting A.P.D.! 😀
If this blog didn’t have the google cached copy of the page on it I would find it hard to believe it was true.
The BBC coordinated to have the resignation of the Labour junior shadow minister on their TV show.
link to alittleecon.wordpress.com
Brown’s ponzi scheme saw house prices triple between 1998 and 2008.
How thick are these people?
Lesley-Anne says: 3:43
Just to be pedantic, house prices would not fall as a result of a Yes vote, sorry but that is a fact.
the 30k figure was just someone having a laugh.
Ask any house builder if they intended to cut the value of their houses, I can tell you for an absolute fact not one did, name me one seller who intended to devalue their property, I can tell you not one did. the value of my house my car my watch and my pension would have remained the same. Neither would goods in the shops change price, blood donations / transplants would not change and all the lies tool would be shown to be so much hot air!
In the calm refection after the referendum the Scottish electorate remembers the threats and the intimidation.
The Labour party threatened terminally ill people in Scotland they would die due to lack of transplants, they told pensioners they would starve as a result of the pensions being worthless, Labour yes Labour threatened my country with Troops on the Border, My blood boils at their threats, my stomach retches at their crowding into the Lords as payment for their treachery!
Dam them all, Dam them all to Hell!
This is absolute nonsense…it is one thing for house prices to drop due to a hypothetical cratering of the economy caused by independence (i.e. prices drop because no one has any money) and another for them to drop in certain sectors (i.e entry level first time buyer)because the government takes measures to ease access and increase supply.
Now personally I don’t believe either of these hypotheses are 100% valid or feasible but to equate them is simplistic and stupid
“This is absolute nonsense…it is one thing for house prices to drop due to a hypothetical cratering of the economy caused by independence (i.e. prices drop because no one has any money) and another for them to drop in certain sectors (i.e entry level first time buyer)because the government takes measures to ease access and increase supply.
Now personally I don’t believe either of these hypotheses are 100% valid or feasible but to equate them is simplistic and stupid”
Um, I didn’t put forward either of those hypotheses. I have no idea what article you just read.
Rev,
What are your thoughts on the EU. I havent a clue.
Confused.
x
OT After just reading WGD, a interesting scenario may arise. As oft discussed England may vote to leave the UK while Scotland (and others) vote to stay in.
Where will Scottish Unionists (inc Broon apparently) who campaign to stay in the EU, then react when England leaves and Scotland is given an opportunity to stay via IndyRef?
What will they choose? Union and an American style future for workers, or Scottish Independence inside the EU?
This poem was written one year after the union by a English judge!
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
And when he had beat him out,
He beat him in again;
He beat him three times over,
His power to maintain.
And the Westminster parliament have being doing it In Defence ever since!
What we need is more council house’s or social assocation’s rented house’s, you can’t tell people who are on minimum wages levels to save for a morgage to buy a house because they can’t afford to do so.
We need to change our housing designs, no more tiny wee shit houses that you can’t swing a cat in, we need decent sized housing like the old council houses used to be.
We need a scottish council house with at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a couple of living/study rooms down stairs with a decent sized kitchen and seperate dining area/room, and make it as standard. And also make adaptable so it can be converted into two up/down flats for singles, couples or pensioners as required.
We need to take the long view regarding housing, and if someone wants to buy their own house surely thats their affair and no-one elses.
Labour clueless as usual.
Davey, like this perhaps link to gov.scot
ScottieDog says:
8 January, 2016 at 3:57 pm
Brown’s ponzi scheme saw house prices triple between 1998 and 2008.
How thick are these people?
Indeed, you cannot sustain an economy purely on buying and selling property – a grossly irresponsible, short-term strategy favoured by both red and blue tories.
Andrew McLean at 3:59
I totally agree with you as the only thing that can drastically change new house prices is the price of land.
Once we get a society that regards housing as homes and not a commodity then house prices will gradually stabilise to realistic levels provided land ownership and values are regulated along side planning laws.
That will only happen after independence as the UK Establishment have a vested interest in land speculation and house inflation.
Andrew McLean says:
8 January, 2016 at 3:59 pm
Lesley-Anne says: 3:43
Just to be pedantic, house prices would not fall as a result of a Yes vote, sorry but that is a fact.
the 30k figure was just someone having a laugh.
Andrew,
YOU know that.
I know that.
EVERYONE on here knows that, or at leastv they SHOULD know that.
The only one’s who DON’T know that are … LABOUR! 😀
p.s. in case you hadn’t realised my previous post was done with tongue well and truly jammed into my cheek. I have a wee bit of a reputation for being, how shall I say this, more than a wee bit up the wall with my comments. 😀
Lesley-Anne, Yes I Know :-)I started out with banter then my blood began to boil!
But G Brown knew it was a lie, that’s all you need to know about that excuse for a man! threaten the terminally ill!
To be fair he did help with third world debt. maybe to aswage his conscience perhaps?
The red-Tory pish-pale must be full to overflowing with novel ideas with which to restore the good fortunes of Labour’s North Britain Branch Office.
FFS – where is Jim Murphy when you need him?
OOPS!
Sorry Andrew. I wasn’t quite sure if you knew or were going off on one. 😉
As far as that excuse of a human goes there is an extremely long and indistinguished list of things he did that he should be apologising for:
a) selling Britain’s gold reserves off at rock bottom prices to help out an AMERICAN bank.
b) stealing £100 Milliom PLUS from National Lottery to help pay for Labour’s vanity project … Lomndon Olympics.
c) P.F.I.
d) removing 10 pene tax rate without saying a word then panicing when the Tories rumbled him.
e) voting for Iraq II
f) claiming years later that he did not want to vote for Iraq II but Blair made him do it
g) keeping stumpf about the radiation at Dalgety Bay for 13 years of Labour in power
Just a few examples of Broon the Loon’s failings. No doubts other folks can come up with many other examples. 😀
Jim Watson
The Labour party shot their load at the referendum, they are now a spent force, the evil that men (labour) do lives after them; the (what little)good is interred with their bones.
In May end them!
best yet
These 6 houses built under Labour – anyone know the location(s) and who got them? (Ordinary mums?). 😉
Re;yesindyref2@3.14
Yes indeed, I have a German friend who could not believe the renting tenancy rules here. She said that in Germany most people only bought a house in their 40-50s and that the rents and tenancies were very fair.
You could not be thrown out with only a eight weeks notice like you do here, (they had to have at least one years notice) and there was no stigma to renting, in fact it was seen as a very sensible move, with buying a place far too binding and expensive.
They preferred unfurnished, it being your home, after all. Often in renting in UKok, you are storing the landlords furniture etc and we once even went to look at a flat where they kept the cupboards locked for storage even though the rent was high!
Renting, if you have to do so privately, is a bit of a nightmare in Scotland for many reasons, not least because of the insecurity. But then, if you pay your mortgage it’s very bad indeed.
God knows where the under 25s on low wages/zero hrs contracts are expected to live, with no help via housing benefit.
Depending on what happens in May, Germany might appeal as a place to go try living, before UKok take is out of The EU.
Lol, I meant if you don’t pay your mortgage, in my last comment.
Brown’s failings, there’s so many you could write a book. Wait somebody has 🙂
It’s called Gordon is a Moron , I’ve got a copy somewhere, it’s a bit anti-scottish and only covers his time as Chancellor but I suppose if it covered his time as PM it would be the size of War and Peace.
T Jenny
I may be wrong but I think the 6houses may have been built on Shetland I’m sure I saw that somewhere a while back
If each new potential house buyer in Scotland rocked up to the developers, and told them to knock at least 33.3% from their asking prices, they will baulk at the idea at first.
But if everybody did this they would have to reduce their prices.
The major house builders make an absolute fortune in house construction.
Taking away the cost of the over inflated land value, an average house would cost no more than £10,000 per room, and the building firms would still make a killing.
The only down side would be an influx of greedy property buyers from down south and over seas.
I had an idea quite a few years ago, where you would get, say 10 friends, or colleagues and each of you would put in £20,000 per house, in the event of buying a large piece of land, to build 10 houses on.
The land would then be equally split, and numbered.
You would then have a number out the hat system as to which plot you got.
You would then communally agree on certain designs, which in turn would reduce prices, as they would be mass produced, the cost of plant hire, and amenities would also be reduced.
Most of the time one of the excuses you get for such high prices is the cost of servicing the plot of land. If you do it the cooperative way, you are dividing the cost equally.
I suppose this would be a sort of cooperative way of purchasing land, if you have bigger numbers involved you obviously have more choice on the land purchase.
When some land owners are charging £150,000 for a small plot “they are delusional”.
Labour, is reaping the benefits of all its efforts to stuff the the people of Scotland. As they say “you reap what you sow”. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.
onelessday – Thanks, that’s interesting, should make it easy to ascertain if they went to the deserving (i.e. top 6 on the homeless/needs list) or friends of those in high places e.g. MP, MSPs, cooncillors etc.
Let’s not kid ourselves that Kezia’s bribe to the voters – “vote for us and we’ll gie ye £3,000” – has got anything to do with helping people buy a house.
As a cynical exercise in manipulating voters it was most likely proposed by a SPAD, possibly McDougall or McTernan.
Cuilean says:at 3pm:
Also, Inverclyde (one of our most depressed housing area) will become a boom area, as a Scots govt ensures the removal of Trident opening up the untapped oil fields in the Clyde/West Coast, which oil experts believe hold more oil than the whole of the North Sea has produced to date, including the Norwegian sector. (this is currently off limits as it sits slap bang in the middle of the nuclear subs coming & going from Faslane/ Coulport.
This story is complete and utter nonsense and originated from Thatcher’s Minister Michael Hesseltine.
This was another ploy to stop exploration off the West coast that would have revealed a larger oil field than in the North Sea.
They played up that we are the only nation on the planet that has that unique kind of oil in the North Sea, that type that runs out and does nothing for the economy, so they couldn’t
afford the Scots to find out that they had 2 massive field, one to back up the other, when in decades time it did one run out.
These subs could if required squeeze through a hole with just 10ft/3 meters clearance on all sides.
Their satellite navigation pin-points the sub’s location to with
1 Yard/Meter. It doesn’t even require manual control to navigate
That being the case, could anyone explain why one of these subs
couldn’t “squeeze” by an oil rig that gave them 1 mile of clearance from our coast.
Recognise too that the subs tend to would be on the surface and in daylight when the leave our port.
You could sail a corporation bus depot between an oil rig and our coast never mind a £Billion sub.
Westminster plan is wait until they get all the North Sea cash and then they can start plundering the West coast, Oh and it too
will be found to have that Running out soon oil that still can do anything for your economy.
If any Westminster Party is talking about anything relating to Scotland, it is a lie. Its a very useful rule of thumb.
OT
but I’m sure you might want a heads up on this letter sent to the local newspaper.
No idea if its genuine – but could this be the start of a new variation of the snpbad theme?
Ex-snp supporters – or pretend ones – trying to make the usual bullshit seem more ‘authentic’.
andy whightman concerned at SG watering down land reform bill
I agree with him, the only way to solve the housing problems in Scotland is to be bold with regards to land reform
this is something that the snp can do regardless how much Westminster complain. it is a devolved matter
land reform was put onto the back burner, rightly so, during the referendum. the snp support is big enough to weather the inevitable msm criticism
time to be bold
link to andywightman.com
My OT post may have been interrupted – so here we go again.
This is a link to a letter in this week’s local rag.
link to centralfifetimes.com
No idea if its genuine.
But I wondered if it could be the start of a variation on the discredited snpbad theme.
The voice of ex – or pretend ex – members of the SNP designed to give the usual bullshit an air of authenticity.
A land tax could put up the price of land. Land is tax exempt to produce more. Larger farm produce more. Scotland exports food products. Scottish plannning Laws can restrict land use, supported by the Greens in the pocket of the Landowners who fund them.
Surely one of the simplest ways regarding housing and land reform is to limit how many properties people can own. You own the house you live in, but that’s it. No second homes, no holiday homes, no buying of property just to rent it out at exorbitant rates. Turn houses back in to homes, not just mere financial assets.
How much land does one man need, as they say?
time running out at The Scotsman
link to bbc.co.uk
Willy Young needs 8 but receives no remuneration. Empty?
@ Mike Cassidy
Not believable. Too exaggerated in its huffing and puffing. There will probably be more like it.
Emm. Who exactly was running the UK during the mad house price rises of the ’80s?
Who sold off the council housing stock and didn’t replace it?
It is tragic that buying a home for your family is so desperatly difficult, out of reach for so many people.
I would like to see an Independent Scotland having a much calmer private housing market and an excellent choice of council supported homes as well as a much more reasonable rental system. Decent homes for everyone.
Shelter, homes, are a basic human need and should never have become the source of over inflated investment opportunities.
The reason houses are so expensive in Scotland is in a major part, down to the price of land. You can go out tomorrow and buy a small piece of land for peanuts, BUT, you can’t build a house on it.
This is one of the reasons Scotland is, in many areas, depopulated. This is the reason we are crammed into towns and cities, where houses are so expensive. Free up the land for housing, in the fields and glens and watch the prices fall.
Who would trust the LABOUR Party with housing (with anything!)? The party that proposed the BEDROOM TAX (Welfare Reform Act 2007). The crazy scheme no doubt introduced to cut back on actually building houses …. let’s just play housing reshuffle with the elderly, poor and disabled.
‘Decline and fall – Inside Housing’
”The total stock of social housing fell under Labour – 421,000 homes were lost from the social housing stock between 1997 and 2010.”
link to insidehousing.co.uk
‘Labour Should Apologise for Social Housing Failure”
‘Official figures show only 6,330 council houses were completed from 1998 to 2010, compared with 17,710 in 1990 alone, which was Baroness Thatcher’s final year as prime minister. In one Labour year, 2004, the number fell to just 130 council homes completed.’
link to questia.com
‘Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: Will 2016 be the year of political enlightenment?’
”Labour may actually fail to win a first-past-the-post seat in May but they continue to confuse with their policies.
Their new first-time buyers’ bonus is just a sop to the middle classes and if it came in would push up house prices and become counter-productive. The additional help of a £3,000 deposit would only be accessible to those that can afford houses and the rest of the deposit in the first place, so a lot of middle-class parents would end up using it to help their kids buy a flat when they go to university, meaning it won’t help the people who most need help.
If they really want to help young people secure homes, then surely encouraging investment in affordable-but-quality housing and social housing is the way to go.
There isn’t a hope in hell that Labour will get the chance to implement the policy anyway but who are they targeting with it? Presumably young people, who are, according to some polls, massively committed to the SNP and independence, many of whom would see the £3,000 deposit help swamped by Labour’s introduction of tuition fees. Or possibly they are targeting those middle-class former Blairites who hold the key to keeping the Tories out of second place. Are they that desperate?
Either way Scottish Labour seem lost in a policy wilderness and trapped in a negative campaign stained by the bitterness of an overwhelming defeat they didn’t see coming and still can’t adjust to.”
link to thenational.scot
@mike cassidy
Yes, a definite false flag. I did comment 🙂
@yesindyref2
A coincidence perhaps after the £50M equal pay settlement against Fife Council going back to 2006.
Just remind me again, who was in charge?
O/T … to some extent.
This is the Union that Kezia Dugdale et al want the Scots to be part of.
Labour flip-flop on housing policy (26 Apr 15)
link to youtube.com
Nightmare housing situation, the Tory (and Labour) way, south of the border.
ChunkMark: ‘A wholesale power grab: Tories UKGov handing housing over to private developers+Vulture Capitalists’
”Tories push through crucial Housing Law at 3 o’clock in the morning ……. 65 extra pages of new Laws added at the last minute with no scrutiny”
link to youtube.com
Chunky Mark: ‘OMG!!! The #HousingBill Armageddon on communities.. Peoples lives People’s Homes’
”No more homes for life”
link to youtube.com
As some many people say, the German economic model is the one to follow. The result is quite plain. Scotland has far more natural resources than Germany and is also an exporting power (not as much as Germany, of course!).
I would also hope that an indy Scotland would follow the German model of spacing out their cities/functions. For example, Edinburgh as financial capital, Aberdeen as oil capital, Glasgow as seat of government offices and maybe Inverness as a tourist capital (?). And there are loads of potential for other places — Aviemore, Fort William, Wick (road to the North).
I always tell people that Scotland is perfect for tourism and an indepedent country because we have four major cities which form a square, easily accessible, with all the potential for a “golden rectangle”.
When Italy was becoming a united kingdom, the capital was first Turin, then Florence. They later captured Rome and made it the capital (circa 1870?). When the capital moved from Florence to Rome, house prices collapsed in Florence, but rose in Rome.
So a YES vote last year would have led to house-price growth in Scotland, certainly in Edinburgh (but that does not fit in with Project Fear, so they wrote the opposite) — and possibly even contribute to slightly less demand in London as investors looked north at new opportunities.
While I am against HPI and believe second homes should be taxed heavily to pay for new council houses, I can say this: the decision of Edinburgh to vote NO and the people who did it are a prime example of what I call “no numpties” — selfish and greedy parasites, easily led by false promises cooked up by Westminster, the economic equivalent of useful idiots.
@mike Cassidy
Reminds me of the pamphlets handed out by the OO purporting to have been written by ex catholics. Could’nt even fool children, they didn’t even get close to reality.
The old identifier that was frequently used – I’m a proud Scot, but…. – has been replaced on social media with – I’m SNP, but…- and there flows the usual whinging shite.
Can’t tell you how sick I am at the moment seeing this, and I call them out on it, telling them they are a weird kind of member, shouting down their party, and why are they not speaking out at their Branch.
They mostly shut up. It’s just the latest troll bullshit.
A land tax could put up the price of land. Land is tax exempt to produce more.
1. a land tax, would have the effect of the large land owners dumping large tracts of land onto the open market. since when has a glut in any commodity ever caused the prise to rise?
2. tax exception increases productivity, for what? more grouse on sporting estates, who does that benefit? more sheep on hills estates, who does that benefit? more crops in the fields, bear in mind we pat tax to the eu who give it back to subsidise these crops anyway, but once again who benefits?
3. the planning laws in Scotland (1974) don’t get updated because of the lack of development in the countryside, if 5million acres gets bought up by 2 million people at knock down prices, how many planning permissions do you think the councils would need to process?
Keiza has tweeted in response to Johnston Press Journo job cuts imminent at Edinburgh based @Scotsman publisher :
” How much more can they take ?? This terrible news for anyone who demands a HEALTHY DEMOCRACY and FREE PRESS ”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!
Earth to Dugdale …..whit’s your game ya numpty ?
Healthy Democracy !!!! Free Press !!!!
She no know what she do , what she say, who she is , where she is and …….why she is soooooooo……..stoooopid.
O/T.
News reports tonnight that Johnston Press, (which includes the Scotsman), is the second Scottish MSM outfit within a week, to cut editorial jobs. The NUJ thinks about 32 editorial staff must go.
Sad that people will lose their jobs but if they didn’t see it coming they must the only ones in Scotland surprised.
As the old Scots saying goes, “It taks a muckle lang shankit spin tae sup wi The Deil”, and those people supped their fill, far too long and far too many platefuls, with spoons with large capacity but far too short handled.
Mike Cassidy at 6.15
It must be fairly simple to identify J MaDonald of Cowdenbeath if he actually exists.
The Editor of the Central Fife Times will know if he does exist or not and if he doesn’t he is fully involved in a gross dishonesty with which he should be beaten about the head.
I would like to think that the local SNP is on the job. If this juvenile nonsense is the product of the local Labour party in cooperation with the local newspaper a leaflet round the doors excoriating them both would be very appropriate.
Meantime I hope Wingers will take the opportunity to respond
Scottish plannning Laws can restrict land use, supported by the Greens in the pocket of the Landowners who fund them…….
the greens have been pushing a LVT for years, something which would hammer these landlords you mention. why are they complaining about it and funding the party who is responsible for pushing for the introduction of a LVT
Surely Kezia, is confused Scotland does not have a free press. The dead tree newspapers in a death spiral are anything but free.
Mike Cassidy and others, that letter supposedly from an ex SNP member, parrots all the usual unionist trash and unfounded nonsense.
As others have pointed out, make no mistake, Westminster and their ‘security’ spooks will be doing everything they can behind the scenes to thwart the SNP and independence movement. Let’s not forget, it was well documented that special branch had people within the SNP, so this is not paranoia.
We should expect more rubbish in the run up to the election in May, and especially attempts by some ‘voices’ to split the vote. This is what Westminster has done throughout history, and we saw how they behaved in the referendum, with their puppets in the BBC.
A bit of history;
link to youtube.com
After May, the newly unemployed Keizia will think back and reflect on the rise and fall of her career and wonder where she went wrong. The people of Scotland will happily tell her that trying to cheat them and fool the gullible was not a winning strategy. Vote Snp x Snp.
Glad to hear of more job losses at another gutter press!!! They really have no idea and don’t see a way of engaging with people but seem to think that if they carry on printing nonsense that people will come and buy the paper in print or online.
They only need to go into workshop canteens and see that nobody buys a paper nowadays. People gamble online and don’t even do the horses. Nobodies interested in some story that a journo has created, people don’t engage with the papers as its old news!! More people in Aberdeen follow fubar as its a local guy posting traffic and local news updates. The papers didn’t move with the time or the people and they just didn’t see it!!! Just Slab and there policies, nobody listens as they were lied to that many times that they don’t matter anymore!!
@Dave McEwan Hill
Newsquest own a lot of local papers, so your Herald signin will work – as did mine.
Just remember to hit the “stop loading page” button as soon as the article appears, or it uses your broadband like there’s no tomorrow as it fills up your hard disk with rubbish and makes the page so slow you could not only make a cup of tea but pick the tea yourself and bring it home to dry.
Iain @ 8:17
At least she’ll have her sparkling journalist career to fall back on at the DR.
Bit like that jobby that couldn’t be flushed…. or Jim Murphy….
link to newstatesman.com
Effijy, excellent post, I am convinced that there is another “McCrone Report” out there, there must be an explanation why the bankrupt UKOK is so desperate to cling onto Scotland at any cost and go to any lengths.
It will be interesting to learn at a later point what today’s politicians knew… Dewar is an interesting case, for example, with his gas shares and secret changing of Scotland’s maritime border. I would imagine Blair and Broon know a lot; as for the Holyrood unionist leaders, I would imagine WM would not trust them with any knowledge, simply because they are such numpties.
I mean, would you even leave Wullie Rennie or Kezia D in charge of a tame budgie in a cage, let alone any state secrets?
I remember during GE2015 there was also some SLAB story which fell apart at the seams in less than an hour, supposedly about some “high-level SNP defector back to Labour”. These people are clutching at straws — including some very old, second-hand straws…
If there is anyone out there who is not thoroughly embarrassed to be associated with “Scottish” labour, I’ll eat my hat.
(Okay, confession time: my wife occasionally uses molten chocolate, marshmallows and smarties to make bite-size treats called top hats.)
What’s the chances of Labour (Scottish Branch Cycling Club and knitting bee) will propose using APD for re training of the out of work journalists?
ot
twitter.com/ScotNational/status/685534668041621504
lol, I think this is for you rev
ot
link to scottovoce.wordpress.com
peter bell is really coming into his own, very funny 🙂
“If Ruth Davidson has a talent at all it is for making it look to the casual observer like she’s waving not drowning”
mike cassidy says:
8 January, 2016 at 6:15 pm
My OT post may have been interrupted – so here we go again.
This is a link to a letter in this week’s local rag.
link to centralfifetimes.com
Absolutely no way that this is genuine!
If they had been in SNP they would know that Independence was never based on oil prices, and they should be aware that our NHS is superior to England’s Tory being privatised version and the worst performing farce that is Labour controlled NHS Wales.
As suggested SNP need to confirm if they ever had a member of that name from that town. I feel certain that they don’t, but nothing to stop the Unionists planting a mole or finding a poor soul is just half witted?
BBC1 scotland
Exeter v Liverpool. .
There are land-owners in Scotland who are paying land taxes now, one of the largest, a Dane, pays his taxes to Copenhagen for his Scottish holdings. Danes are liable for this where ever their land is. John Major lifted sporting estates out of taxation altogether to oblige his Tory chums, they pay damn-all, it’s a national scandal. Sheep are also being taken off the hills in many places, tenants would have the right to buy so shepherds are becoming an endangered species! We eat sheep!
Brit Nats don’t do irony!
When are plans to bring land back into public use. It’s the Greens who object. Holding back essential projects and increasing the costs.
“Attempting to split the vote”
Well there winning.
Now here’s a thing
link to tinyurl.com
Thank God for Susan Dalgety to show us the error of our ways eh?
Im off for some therapy for my racist, murderous, Homophobic, misogynistic tendencies,
Disgusting woman!
@mike cassidy
there was a similar letter in the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser just before Christmas, very similar in tone but with an added slur against Mr Boswell. I ignored it at the time, as I expect most people did, as it was so obviously a unionist plant.
@jdman
John I agree, but is there evidence those words are hers?
I have read the so called letter from the so called former SNP member and in my view it is utter SHITE … end of!
In my view no one, and I DO mean NO ONE, who was EVER a member of the SNP would write such a load of utter garbage!
As you read this utter gutter shite it makes me think that this J. McDonald from Cowdenbeath is the brother – in – law of a certain Jackie Baillie!
Everything that is mentioned in the so called letter is nothing more than a poorly compiled list of Labour complaints over the last 12 months.
No one can really ever be 100% in these situations but in this case I’d say I’m 99% certain about the origins of this garbage.
On the lighter side about this *cough* letter I was thinking that as we are all agreed, I believe, that this is a false claim regarding being a former member of the SNP then surely we can call it a fraud. As it is a fraud, in my view, then perhaps someone can initiate a law suit for fraud against J. McDonald of Cowdenbeath! 😀
@jdman
Is she the one who was on the telly with the Rev Stu during the referendum campaign? I can’t remember a word she said (spoke less sense than Jim Murphy), but I do remember thinking that she sounded like someone just seconds from death after imbibing a very large portion of sand and superglue.
Almanysbunnet demonstrates a stable housing market in Germany giving folks affordable housing, virtually the opposite of the U.K. Model…….
This is an example of how countries like Germany and France are run for the benefit of their populations whilst the UK is run for the benefit of the companies that operate here ….plus the American Weapons Industry.. ….
There’s plenty of examples demonstrating the benefits of living in Most other EU countries compared to the UK. The rail system is one. Some German trains are comparable with luxury yachts. Whilst the French have had high speed rail for around 10 yrs. in most areas, the UK rail system is barely capable of getting the workers to their work stations…. Don’t mention “in comfort”. Then there’s the social contract.
‘Susan Delgety’ – not a ‘bigot’. Imagine putting a name to that. It was Westminster Unionists who caused the trouble in Ireland by supporting an apartheid Masonic regime (for votes) who were breaking UK Law An Irish Home Rule Bill was passed in April 1914. The HoL delayed it. It would not have been passed into statute until September 1916.
jdman
re Susan Dalgety.
Have a read from the archives!
link to wingsoverscotland.com
It is EU State companies that are running UK public services, railways, utility companies. Westminster would rather spend UK taxpayers money on illegal wars causing migration in Europe, banking fraud and tax evasion. Costing £Billions and killing and maiming millions.
andrew neil retweeting every tweet supporting bbc tonight
panic mode,a joy to watch
People like the J.McDonald of Cowdenbeath character( who personifies Scottish unionism)are Scotland’s disgrace.
They are however being slowly removed from influence in Scotland’s governance and future even whilst we are not yet independent.
If pathetic transparent attempts to influence political opinion such as this are what unionists are resorting to ,then we must be prevailing.
The day when they have no sanctuary in Westminster is also approaching.
So where will the filthy wee cockroaches scuttle to then ?
Re disgruntled SNP member.
I have been viewing this hokum on various websites for months now. They inevitably end with the writer going to another unspecified Part but indicating they previously voted Labour.( Go figure)
Fortunately my head does not button up at the back.
The opinion polls however tell another story.More are coming than supposedly leaving.Long may it continue.
It is an old trick,and not very effective.
link to independent.co.uk
Half way down Labour MP Woodcock complains about SNP stance over the BBC supporting his pal Doughty prearranged resignation with the BBC.
SNP must be really bad!
Effijy 6:04
It’s not that the subs could not navigate past rigs that is the perceived problem it’s what could be lurking under the rigs! The U.K. Is desperate for money if there was not a threat to “national security” I bet my bottom dollar they would be exploiting the Clyde basin by now.
I first heard of the potential back in the early 80’s when I worked for an oil supply company in Aberdeen, one of our engineers had been on the survey boats and he reckoned the potential was big. Off course there are no Guarantees, there might not be commercial quantities.
If I rememer correctly BP did an appraisel well but it was a tight hole (no information released)
scottieDog says:
8 January, 2016 at 8:56 pm
BBC1 scotland
Exeter v Liverpool
What did you expect from a so called Scottish National Broadcaster
the St Mirren Vs Partick Thistle who were also playing tonight?
I think it was the name Thistle that made that broadcast impossible, but showing our football on our license money might
give us expectations of watching our National team while our Colonial Masters are stroking their ego dan saff.
If anyone wants to seeScottish football league games live then may I suggest BBC Alba? 😉
Put your thinking caps on!
Where has all the extra SNP support come come from?
Maybe try to persuade more to move over rather than piss them off, thought it was Labour that were tribal.
This site, as far as I know is not about the SNP it is FOR INDEPEDENCE no matter you current or former allegiances.
It’s your and my job to make them welcome. How the fuck do you expect to win otherwise?
jdman says:
8 January, 2016 at 9:28 pm
Now here’s a thing
link to tinyurl.com
Thank God for Susan Dalgety to show us the error of our ways eh?
What sums up this bitter distorted woman is her assessment that SNP have a small band of MPs?
Some how Labour’s North Accounting Unit, who have 1, Yes One Scottish MP, thanks to medias corrupt story regarding the SNP candidate, seem to be a bigger player than SNP’s 56 Members.
Susan, SNP have 56 times the number of Labour MPs because the democratic majority wanted it that way!
Your party’s record in office and your pathetic attempts at slander will ensure you remain a minority.
You can add Switzerland to the list of countries where most people rent rather than buy. Only the very rich in Switzerland buy property. Most people invest in industry and social services instead.
They prefer an integrated transport system that works to a private one.
They also like transparency. You can look up any car registration and find out who owns the vehicle. You can also find out what they earn and how much tax they pay. “For the sake of good order.”
They like referendums. If your Canton doesn’t want a nuclear power station and the population votes against it, it doesn’t get built. Taxes are collected at the Canton level then a percentage is remitted to Central Government to cover finance and defence.
Swiss people pride themselves on not knowing who the President is. Imagine Westminster under such a federal system!
Lenny Hartley says:
8 January, 2016 at 10:40 pm
Effijy 6:04
It’s not that the subs could not navigate past rigs that is the perceived problem it’s what could be lurking under the rigs!
Always happy to be corrected Lenny, but what would be lurking under the rig other than the oil?
Do you mean an enemy sub could hide there in wait?
when will we hear the next summary of newspaper circulation figures and will the National be included
Thepnr
‘Maybe try to persuade more to move over than try to piss them off’
True enough.
I was probably venting a bit of spleen in my post at 10.14,whilst knowing many NO voters are not unionists per se,just fearful of change and lacking in vision for Scotland due to years of taking an MSM pounding.
Welcome to Wings over Scotland, Scots of all hues.
Your country needs you 🙂
Shug I did a bit of googling the other night to try and find out same, The Herald,National and Hootsman are treated as regional papers at their owners request , this means that their figures are audited less often (I think!) the national said a couple of months ago that it’s daily circulation was
13/14k I think the other papers will be reporting their circulation at the end of the month as there was a few stories about falling circulation reported in early feb15.
Thats it , me and my family of 12 are moving into Jackie Baillies pants. Really, theres a load of room in there.
effigy
You got it, happened in the North Sea a few times I know off, with the tridents are other subs transiting the Clyde and approaches the mod would veto any thing that could be used to hide near.
Anyone else feeling it’s kind of quiet in here tonight, with this thread only at 150-ish comments?
Well, here’s what it was like four years ago…
link to wingsoverscotland.com
But, really, Morgatron. Think of the neighbourhood!
The big mistake of such as J. McDonald, from Cowdenbeath is, that like everything else from the Unionist propaganda machine, it is always over egged, overly hysterical and overdone.
A bit like the schoolyard joke we used to tell to discredit British Rail when taking over from LMS & LNER.
It was a supposed Waverley Station Tannoy announcement: –
“The Train from Kircaldy now standing at platforms 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8, came in sideways”.
I have also heard that in Germany, the local councils have and use the power to step in and cap a house sale price if they consider it too high.
Kenny says:
8 January, 2016 at 7:32 pm
As some many people say, the German economic model is the one to follow. The result is quite plain. Scotland has far more natural resources than Germany and is also an exporting power (not as much as Germany, of course!).
I would also hope that an indy Scotland would follow the German model of spacing out their cities/functions. For example, Edinburgh as financial capital, Aberdeen as oil capital, Glasgow as seat of government offices and maybe Inverness as a tourist capital (?). And there are loads of potential for other places — Aviemore, Fort William, Wick (road to the North).
I always tell people that Scotland is perfect for tourism and an indepedent country because we have four major cities which form a square, easily accessible, with all the potential for a “golden rectangle”..
——
It’s also true though that there are attractions and advantages of bigger cities – especially for young people where there may be more of a buzz..feeling part of somewhere bustling and exciting. And a large population within a small area can support a diverse range of activities and jobs, concerts, restaurants etc.
There is also something exciting about a modern city skyline, especially at night with rooftop bars and restaurants.
Not so easy in Edinburgh with its history, but Glasgow could certainly do with a few modern skyscrapers.
Glasgow used to have over a million population and may do so again, but linking the two biggest cities with high speed rail effectively doubles the catchment area in a short time.
I was looking at the EGIP page recently. The electrification program will bring big improvements and fastest journey times will come down to 42 minutes by the end of 2018. But I think the ultimate aim should really be under 30 minutes.
This is where authoritative regimes such as China have advantages in certain ways. Not suggesting we should have that, but in certain situations they can just say, “OK, let’s do it, it will be good for the country”, and put thousands to work on a huge project.
In Scotland we could even build a windfarm half way just to power a direct Edinburgh to Glasgow line.
There is huge room for improvement when you consider the first HS2 route in England:
London to Birmingham, 140 miles, 49 minutes proposed
Glasgow to Edinburgh, 42 miles, 42 minutes proposed (with stops)
This SNP member talking rubbish about the party in whatever paper
Question: What’s the membership number?
Do we not think that publication making up this shit would be happy to print their number, don’t have to print their name,
unless of course it’s not a real thing and they made it all up (sarcastic face thingy)
Whilst I agree that the St Mirren match should have been on the telly ( as a Paisley Buddie with a brother there that would have loved to have seen the match), if you looked closely at around thirty minutes in you’d have seen my son cheering on Exeter from the Big Bank! Well done Exeter!
Switzerland is a tax haven. Where the wealthy of the world can hide their money and tax evade. Banks illegally recommend it. That’s from where their money comes. They are advocating giving each citizen a certain amount. A basic amount. Non EU. They have usually been neutral in War. Saved a bit. One of the richest countries in the world. Strong currency.
Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, NSNS Denmark? Scotland could be better off.
O/T
Anybody see Michael Portillo on This week (35.01) describing how to win a referendum?
We were all aware of the tactic, but its nice to have it on record from Mr. P.
Sorry don’t know how to do the link thingy.
If only Quintin Tarantino could send Samuel L Jackson to deal with lying, betraying, cheating unionist ‘basterds’:
My ‘Hateful Eight’ review: link to wp.me
Sweden’s got an amazing housing socio-economic culture. Its as far away from the UK’s as you can get. The worst aspect of UKOK housing today is the horrific Barrathutch estates springing up all over the place, making speculators like Stewarty Milne very rich but covering our green belts with garbage cramp cooky cutter housing, squeezed in to tiny gardens, with no amenities and hard to get to with no public transport, UKOK capitalism at’s rawest.
Socialist workers/red tory boys like Crash Gordon and Bomber Bliar refused to build social housing, leaving it all to property speculators, so here we are, a generation paying a fortune for cheap as chips, ugly as sin housing that would make post war council house builders vomit.
Just one more horrify red tory legacy, if one of their biggest. Hell on earth in the middle east does top shite housing in their Scotland region, but its probably made a few red and blue tories equally as rich as UK’s developers.
Incidentally, Barratt paid a lot of money to the first vote Snatcher Thatcher campaign back in the day. Almost immediately after winning, Thatch scrapped all housing regulations dictating room sizes, numbers and sizes of windows, insulation, circulation space, all of it gone under blue tory reign. Funny how red tories like Crash Brown kept them that way.
Lenny Hartley says:
8 January, 2016 at 11:46 pm
effigy
You got it, happened in the North Sea a few times I know off, with the tridents are other subs transiting the Clyde and approaches the mod would veto any thing that could be used to hide near.
Thanks Lenny but I really did work on sonar systems and fitting one at the mouth of the clyde or on an oil rig, it would be well for a small investment to access the largest oil field in the Europe.
The whole thing is nonsense!
Let’s waste £120 Billion on Trident so that it can stop access to a few £Trillion of oil funds.
It could only happen in corrupt UK.
With respect to what ken500 said, I believe Switzerland is no longer a tax haven….well not for UK citizens. There was something about that last year. Some EU agreement. Lichtenstein is the way to go, with, I believe, better interest rates than Switzerland.The basic persons allowance was narrowly voted down in 2015, for residents only…….I think it got 43 percent. However, in context it made sense. Switzerland has a lot of cash and relatively low unemployment. Give people cash and they will spend. This creates jobs, more tax intake etc. I have lived kn Switzerland for a number of years. The tax system is fair, most of you money goes to the Kanton, Democracy is not dead and despite having no access to sea or other areas with oil, they have cheaper petrol than the rest of Europe.
The would-be ‘journos’ hallucinating again.
Contradicting the’sels again
‘There has been a surge in house sales’
‘UK Gov is introducing the ‘Green’s’ tax. Second homes tax goes up from £1K to £7K for all the portfolio holders’. Osbourne has beaten Andy to it.
On cue ‘Labour are going to build 60,000 houses’ Dream ones. Next thing deid folk will be coming out of the shower.
They wonder why their sales are dropping. Funnier than a comic.
@Ken500
Aye here it is 🙂
link to archive.is
It is reported that there are more smaller houses needed More older people, more single households, divorced/separated folk or one parent families.
Switerland still hiding the accounts. Singapore was reported to be taking over, Some dodgy practices. There is still the Corporate City of London. Tax haven of the world where HMRC is not fit for purpose because Westminster/Unionists do not uphold UK Law.
@Ian Brotherhood
I can remember when all this was just fields. Look at it now, you can’t move for comments. 👿
4 Months till they are voted oot. Not much longer to put up with all the nonsense. That 1 MP will be busy with the shovel. Once the weather clears the campaign begins in earnest.
@ Lenny Harley
I first heard of the potential back in the early 80’s when I worked for an oil supply company in Aberdeen,
Sii ?
@Patrician
Be nice now 🙂
@ Lenny Hartley
I read a while back that BP applied for a production licence for the Clyde. It was the MOD who objected and plans were shelved. And don’t forget the Rockall Basin, which has been estimated to be larger than Saudi’s oil reserves. I believe the southern part of that is already being drilled, (it is in N.Irish waters)
@ Mike Cassidy.
If it looks smells and sounds like bullshit, it’s bullshit. Funnily enough, that’s Rowley’s neck of the woods. Used to be a labour stronghold. It was merged with Kirkcaldy for the WM elections as labour were losing their grip there due to the fact that their MP, Dr. Lewis Mooney was an arrogant self opinionated deluded buffoon.
They replaced him with Crash Gordon. They must have a production line of these morons. Rowley has a dodgy background. Responsible for much of Fife Council’s mismanagement and debt as well as a somewhat sleazy altercation with the law.
During the tenure of these three amigos, Kirkcaldy has seen unbelievable wastage of public funds while it has lost two pits(Seafield was the largest producing pit in the UK), GEC, Rank Strand, Babygro, Meikles carpet factory, linen mills, foundries and of course the linoleum industry which now supports 400 jobs as opposed to 5000 at it’s peak.
The mile long esplanade resembles Beirut in the 1980’s and the shopping centre, which twenty odd years ago was the destination for thousands of shoppers from across Scotland is now witnessing charity shops closing their doors. And of course, Crash himself ensured that Tesco confirmed their decision to quit the town.
Despite all this, they still proceeded with a £6million interior refurbishment of the Town House. There is no cinema, they proceeded to build a totally inadequate new swimming pool after public consultation which they then completely disregarded and there is no sports centre.(with a population of 60000)
I remember reading a headline in the Fife Free Press several years ago something along the lines of “New Tourist investment for Kirkcaldy”. I was quite excited to read on. That soon turned to dismay when I discovered that this investment was a £200,000 grant to upgrade the path at Ravenscraig Park. I could picture coachloads of pensioners heading to the Lang Toon from all over the world, just to see the new path. Aye my arse.
To sum up, labour and their cronies have screwed every penny, which wisely invested could have done much to alleviate the natural decline of some of the industry and give their constituents something to be proud of. But that’s not what labour do, is it? Incompetent corrupt condescending arseholes, the lot of them.
Rant over and out!
Petra @ 7:29pm
There is quite a long piece here, which covers several of the problems likely to result from the bill. Though the housing shortage in Scotland is of a lesser scale than in England and due to different ‘blockages’ in the market, it is still essentially down to a shortage in supply.
link to opendemocracy.net
How can England sort out the above, without Scottish revenues and resources?
Wikipedia has an article on owner occupancy with an international table of home ownership in urban areas.
Romania, Armenia and Kazakhstan seem to top the list at 96 % while Switzerland and Sweden are very low at 40% though Nigeria at 10% is the lowest.
UK is 50%.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
The Herald article quoting Ken Macintosh on housing doesn’t say whether Labour would build council houses (now called social housing as Housing Associations can also build). They are still thinking about that.
link to archive.is
ACC spent £65Million on a refurbished Town House. Nothing but the best but claim there is not enough money for public services. A statue cost £thousands.
The Scottish Gov is building an improved rail link between Edinburgh to Glasgow now. It takes 40 mins to travel between Glasgow and Edinburgh now. The new connection will take 30mins. .
HS2 costing £80Billion to Crewe will take 30mins less. For travellers on the continued journey North, this will not improve journey times because they will have to get off that train and get on another train. Doing so would lose the 30mins gained. Ie wait for another train etc. Their journey could actually end up taking longer and be more expensive. Instead of staying on a straight through improved service. HS2 travel will be more expensive, ticket prices will be dearer unless they are subsidised by taxpayers money to alleviate the cost. – ‘a White elephant’ with no marketable business case for support. i.e. Not enough passengers to justify the cost.
There are no plans to extend it to Scotland (claimed no business case) The people in the Northern Cities want the journey time between their Cities improved. (electrified) HS2 doesn’t do that. E.g the journey between Manchester and Sheffield is a nightmare. Takes ages on a non electrified line. They want their Northern connections improved not another line to London, ferrying people south to improve the London S/E (already more advantaged) economy.
The point about shorter times to the North & Scotland would be to improve the present line – electrify the North & Scotland instead of HS2 (higher costs) This could cut down on air travel – less time difference between train and plane. That would lead to cheaper, faster journeys from North to South of the whole of Britain. Not just another line to benefit London S/E who are already more advantaged. Westminster centralist economic policies, which add to the congestion of the south.
Once again Scotland could be paying towards a service which actually make (non improved) journey times in Scotland and, north to south of Britain longer. Scotland needs to electrify it’s rail lines between it’s cities to improve the economy. Not contribute to another line which could make journeys to and from Scotland take longer.
People in the South of the UK will make more road journey (cheaper) adding to the congested roads and travellers in the North will make more Plane journeys (dearer) but quicker. When an improved comprehensive (electrified) rail service could bring improvement journeys (times) for all, not just London S/E centric again. Ie the money (£80Billion) could be better spent.
@ Rob James.
Excellent post and just about sums up the Labour Party activities anywhere in Scotland to a tee.
Having lived,worked and been brought up amongst these fuckin halfwits I can honestly say they are the most arrogant, clueless shower of arseholes anywhere on this planet.
I’ve met and mixed with politians and activists of all hue’s but this shower take the biscuit.
Mind you there are a few in the SNP I also wouldn’t give the time of day to but that’s another story.
I would also commend the German attitude towards housing.
Home ownership is not a priority until much later in life, which means young families avoid financial hardship at a time when they can invest in their families and lifestyles. They focus on the quality of life with disposable income. They do not throw every spare penny into a mortgage, the bulk of which is interest much greater than the sum actually borrowed.
There is also a more discriminating market. Lightweight timber frame properties are cheap to match their construction, whereas more traditional properties of more substance are priced to reflect it. Here in the UK, nobody discriminates about the method of construction. The benchmarks for pricing are abstract by comparison; number of bedrooms being a good example. Build crap with right number of bedrooms and en-suite bathrooms and you get top price for it. It doesn’t matter that the building fabric is garbage and the rooms are tiny. There are even companies putting in scaled down furniture in their show houses to make the rooms look bigger.
Look around you. Look at Scotland’s heritage. From the black houses to our 19th century tenements, Scotland has understood the merits of good quality construction that reflected our society. We have some of the worst, and some of the finest housing traditions, and indeed commercial property anywhere, but we take it all for granted. Few of us care to see high caliber stone built commercial property bulldozed to make way for some shitty tin plated supermarket with 57 acres of car parking. These stone built properties will never be replaced. The industries which built them are all but destroyed; killed off by starvation because cheap crap is what people want, ironically crap which isn’t even very cheap.
I don’t understand the UK property market. It seems unable to appreciate its strengths and blessings, and happy to forfeit the highest traditions to make may for some bastardised pseudo-American property model devised by neoliberal financiers who despise the concept of quality. We all know “something” is wrong with our building industry, but the short term profit and casino type investment returns are much too valuable a source of tax revenue to expect our Governments to intervene.
Until something changes, we are doomed to suffer the loss of high caliber stone buildings we could and should repair, and see them replaced with anonymous banal and non-distinct trash. The same could be said for the trades.
It might already be too late to save them.
@ Patrician 1.11 And not a GM plant in sight , might be a few UKok plants tho. Like the new Avitar.
Look, if I cut air duty tax then I can spend the money saved ( ie the tax not levied ) on other things. What is it that the simples don’t understand about Labour policies.
Sorry, I haven’t read through all the comments above. I wonder where the 30% figure came from, and what reasoning or research was behind it. Was it, perhaps, another Downing St frightener?
Rob James
Re Clyde basin
link to archive.is
Incidentally one of my neighbours told me that during the 80’s he moved land drilling rigs all over the Clyde Estuary by ship and evaluation drilling was carried out on land close to the shore. He reckoned there was discoveries, whether commercial or not would need to be further investigated.
Re Rockall Basin only potential for 75 billion barrels , nothing to see here, move on please. Possible that claims over ownership between Ireland, u.k. Denmark holding back exploration, it is maybe at the edge of current technology.
SNP could produce a discussion paper on the reduction of APD to Solely Fund MSPs wages n expences,is it to late for next Thurs FMQs. Im convinced ( in a fleeting moment of madness) all the so call opposition partys will support the SNP motion,wont they.
Mike Cassidy says :
SNP Lettergate
Having read the letter it does tend to read more like the rantings of someone bemoaning an ex partner after an acrimonious divorce as opposed to a disenchanted ex member of a political party.
The writer also seems to produce verbatim a list of anti SNP rhetoric as spewed by MSM and political numpties.
Perhaps the person would have had more credibility had they not stated their passion for the party initially drove them to canvass the length and breadth of Scotland for the SNP , assuming Independence was also that person’s ultimate goal.
One wonders , if the person is to be believed , what on earth happened which has resulted in them now being so bitter and vicious in their assault on a party they were willing to put so much effort into .
Personally I think it reeks of political shenanigans which beggars the question just how low are they willing to go ? How pathetic that they deem dissing a party in a pretendy letter in a newspaper as opposed to listing their own yoon party’s attributes , as difficult as that may be.
On the bright side if they were an SNP member then is it not better that person has now left the party as their petulance, disloyalty , unworthiness and moronic nature is more suited to one of the Yoon parties is it not.
On the brighter brighter side if it is a yoon ploy then what a pathetic thing to do and one must hope that person is now travelling the length and breadth of Scotland for a yoon party as I am sure that person will be a great asset ……… to the SNP next May.
“The number of planned redundancies was not specified but the National Union of Journalists said 32 posts in Scotland were at risk.”
……………….’Journalists shocked’………………….
“NUJ Scotland national organiser Paul Holleran said: “It would be an understatement to say that journalists across Johnston Press are shocked at this latest round of job cuts.”
“The NUJ will work with local management to mitigate the redundancies and their impact on the quality of titles but we are seriously concerned at this announcement.”
Earlier this week, Newsquest announced plans to cut editorial jobs at the Herald and Times newspaper group.”
The BBC in Scotland:- link to archive.is
Ooooops I’m living in the past….said “person will be a great asset ……… to the SNP NEXT May.”….should be ‘THIS May ‘
@Ken500
If you think there is no housing bubble in Scotland and that the collapse in young buyers is due to ‘demographic changes’ rather than affordability, you’re wrong. Why else are so many young people finding it harder than their parents?
I would argue that people are having children later in part due to the difficulty in securing a decent home to raise them in. I know that’s been the experience of many of my friends.
According to the Halifax, Scottish first time buyers in 1997 paid an average of 2.3x their salary for their first house. Today, that figure has risen to 3.3x. So they have to find or borrow an entire extra salary to get themselves on the housing ladder. I’m sure in places like Edinburgh the situation is even more of a struggle than that. Low interest rates were supposed to be an emergency measure to save the banks and can’t be relied upon.
Admittedly in London the situation is absolutely and completely bonkers (9.6x salary!), but Scotland shouldn’t be complacent. Everyone needs a secure home but successive UK governments have used housing as a cash machine to bribe older voters with.
It’s a slippery slope and Scotland would do well not to make the same mistakes as the South-East and instead firmly nip any further affordability problems in the bud.
I agree that the situation is much worse in England. Having Labour (whose fault the housing crisis is in the first place) stoke house prices further with taxpayer’s money is the worst possible option.
Ah, Switzerland, whatever did happen to that Nazi gold?
@Jack Murphy
And we perhaps need look no further than this to see why some previously indy leaning journos have done a volte-face.
@Fred
Did a certain Herr Braun sell it off to them at rock bottom prices?
Young People do not find it harder than their parents. Home ownership as a % of the population has increased. It was just as hard for their parents. Who inherits their parents property, the children. That was the illustration on average earning. People had children younger, less people were in higher education, and mortgages were harder to get, at higher interest rates. Higher repayments. Higher unemployment rate. 10%+ 15% bank rate.
Many folk can afford to buy but chose to rent, to have more disposible income and to have choice. They can live in a better property for less. Many share but they have always shared. The majority would rather travel if they have the choice. They settle down and have children later. The 2007/8 banking crash was a once in a hundred? year occurrence, because of politicians. That cannot be used as a ‘norm’ without qualification. That led to a slump in house purchase for obvious reasons.
People do not have to buy if they don’t want to. It is a choice. More women make a career choice. Why shouldn’t they? There are flexible mortgage – 40 year? mortgages – part mortgages all unheard of previously. Statistically less common. It was not 120% mortgages, also less common who defaulted. The paper work conditions are still similar. Proof of earning, background credit checks. Many people are fed up with housing being used as a political football. It is too important for that. ‘Cathy come Home’ Rachman Slum conditions. The London S/E and Midlands housing bubble were a political decision. Young people look out for their parents, but parents have often made sacrifices for their children.
@ CameronB Brodie says at 2:22 am ”There is quite a long piece here, which covers several of the problems likely to result from the bill. Though the housing shortage in Scotland is of a lesser scale than in England and due to different ‘blockages’ in the market, it is still essentially down to a shortage in supply.
link to opendemocracy.net
Thanks for the interesting article Cameron. It looks as though the Tories are hell bent on destroying the UK in every possible way. I’ve taken one extract from the article that highlights the sheer lunacy and heartlessness of their proposed Housing Bill.
”In a further punitive measure, the bill will end secure tenancies for council tenants, reducing them to the same rootless insecurity as private rental tenants, with MAXIMUM tenancies of 2 to 5 years. It would have been far better for the government to have sought to alleviate the plight of private tenants.
Short–term tenancies reduce good employment opportunities as people are forever having to up sticks and move. Teachers and GPs are hindered in their work by the constant churn of those in their care, and people are deprived of the chance to take part in civic life, to become part of a community, and put down roots. Even in old age, they will be strangers.”
And where Anne Williams finalises her piece by saying ”Under the protection of the sly new ‘English Votes for English Laws’, even an exceptional show of solidarity from the Opposition will avail us nothing. We can only hope sensible amendments can mitigate the damage – and that the House of Lords rise to the occasion to protect the people and ‘disappoint’ the government.”
The ending of secure tenancies resulting in the tenants feeling that they have a lack of control over their lives is not only socially (especially in relation to children) and economically disruptive it could lead to ill health and even premature death for the adults concerned.
Pat Kane’s article ‘The Glasgow Effect is not in our Control’ in The National today points out that Sir Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, suggested ”one explanation for the health effect in Glasgow: how much of a sense of “control” someone has over their lives.
The more stressed we feel about our inability to shape our environment, the more our “inflammatory, hormonal and immunological responses” are activated. This stress-induced activation, says Burns, “eventually leads to premature ageing and the early onset of heart disease or cancer”.
To state the obvious: the disempowering experience of poverty – whether in work, or at the hands of an increasingly heartless welfare system – is an enormous stress inducer.”
link to thenational.scot
Mike Cassidy @ 6.15
J.MacDonald, Cowdenbeath.
J: John, James.
MacDonald.
How many of that name reside in Cowdenbeath, Hundreds?
If you believe the content, you’d be a con man’s delight.
@Ken500
The stats don’t agree with you. Older people might be homeowners, but the number of young people able to buy a home of their own has fallen sharply as house prices have continued to rise much faster than wages:
link to theguardian.com
If 2008 was a one-off, then so was Black Wednesday and 15% interest rates. And who is in a better position – someone who borrowed twice their salary facing 10% rates for a few years, or someone who borrowed six times their salary facing a 30 or 40 year mortgage (during which time interest rates will surely rise)? At least the first person has a hope of paying down the capital in a reasonable time.
To claim that I rent because it’s more flexible (it’s insecure), or because it’s cheaper (it’s not), or because I’d ‘rather travel’ (I wouldn’t) is just laughable. Mine is the first generation since the war facing worse living standards than our parents, and it’s all due to the massive cost of housing.
I’m in my 30s and I’m forced to share like a student. Where were you living in your 30s?
You obviously have no clue of the housing challenges faced by younger people. Parents helping out their children doesn’t help those whose parents can’t or won’t help. Shouldn’t we all have the same opportunities in life, no matter who are parents are?
Housing is deeply political, as successive governments’ 20 year long failure over housing is the single biggest challenge facing anyone under about 35.
O/T
link to daisycollinsblog.wordpress.com