Will The Government Be Praised Or Lambasted ?

[youngmafbog]

http://news.sky.com/story/1281305/interest-rates-may-rise-sooner-than-expected

It's actually good news as it means the economy is picking up much faster than originally thought (Bad news for you Mickey) but I wonder how many of our 'highly intellectual' electorate will blame the Government for bigger Bills ?

[Farriercm]

Wish the interest rates,would rise to 50%, it would make me a very wealthy person,now it might be time to reward the savers and non scroungers.

[jno]

interest rates up is good news for savers, bad for mortgage payers; it depends who you are.

[youngmafbog]

I cant wait either, my savings are dwindling and I have no debt so no advantage to me there.

[youngmafbog]

Well divebuddy thats we price we are paying for opening the doors to all and sundry without the infrastructure to back it up.

too few houses to go round means higher prices.

Another labour legacy from Brown and Blair.

[jno]

wasn't there an earlier prime minister who offered people the chance to buy a house at a discount but made no provision for replacing the rental stock?

[Old_Geezer]

Interest rates are an abuse of savers at present. To be so low for so long is the real reason to criticise. But to minimise hardship to those who decided to rely on the near free money one can not bring them back to a fairer level quickly. The country has to be weaned off of saver abuse. No doubt if they do now think they have finally finish faffing about and sorted the issue they will want to reverse the "quantitative easing", since the worry was always that they would break trust and leave our money devalued.

[mikey4444]

jno..right of course but this view is conveniently forgotten by some here on AB.

We need more houses...not "executive, bijou residences" but more Council Houses, for the rented sector, with the stipulation, in law, that they remain part of the national housing stock, just in case they are all sold off again.

[Old_Geezer]

Did you mean to say, "... tried to buy votes for their party by offering the public's property to it's existing tenants, at a discount" ?

[ToraToraTora]

I'll stick my neck out here and say that rates will not rise until middle of next year. The governement won't want a load of moaning borrowers going into the next election. Oh to those that think it's down to the BOE committee, please!

[mikey4444]

OG...yes, of course I did, and it worked ! Short time gain and long time pain.

[youngmafbog]

But Mickey, the sale of housing stock has nothing to do with a shortage does it?

Overall we dont have enough houses, either for purchase or rent. This is down to the open door policy of labour that you all love and admire so much.

And, as for the housing sell-off, if you had read our (the righties) posts on this in the past you should remember most of us disagreed with the idea of not using the capital to build more.

Unlike those of you on the left we are more pragmatic and are willing to critise our party.

So your point is?

[Old_Geezer]

Not with the overall shortage, agreed, but with the council's ability to offer housing to those who come to them in need, it most certainly does. Houses sold cheaply to the public didn't all stay that way. They were sold on at market price, or even 'improved' to increase its value first; and thus became another home out of reach of the lower paid. But of course the overall shortage is a combination of too much government encouragement to breed, a policy that is long past any 'sell by date', and too many folk immigrating here over and above those emigrating out. That isn't so much a housing shortage overall, but a population excess.

[mikey4444]

ymb...you are quite correct in that quite a few right-wing commentators here on AB have deplored the policy of not building new Council Housing, after the hiving off in the 1990's. And those of you that do think it was a mistake are to be applauded for you honesty and candidness.

But this policy of Mrs V is a principal cause of there being a serious shortage of affordable rental property. Without that policy we probably wouldn't have odious characters like these two :::

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/fergus-wilson-assault-guilty-15697/

[naomi24]

//But this policy of Mrs V is a principal cause of there being a serious shortage of affordable rental property.//

Wonder why the subsequent Labour government didn't put it right?

[jno]

OG I wouldn't dream of imputing dodgy behaviour to our nation's elected leaders.

Nonetheless, I think that the right to buy was the beginning of the house price madness. The current London solution seems to be to build 50-storey tower blocks along the river that only oligarchs will be able to afford to live in; so the current government doesn't seem to be tackling this any better than its predecessors.

[naomi24]

Mikey, //Individual local authorities have always had the ability to sell council houses to their tenants, but until the early 1970s such sales were extremely rare.

The Labour Party initially proposed the idea of the right of tenants to own the house they live in, in its manifesto for the 1959 General Election which it subsequently lost.//

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Buy

[mikey4444]

B*ll*x naomi...it was a snide attempt to bribe the working class to vote Tory, and it worked. Well, until 1st of May 1997 of course, something our resident Tory voters here on AB conveniently forget !

[Farriercm]

Well said Mikey ,you are spot on .

[mikey4444]

Thanks farrier !