Cameron's insulting dismissiveness of the principle of decent affordable housing really shone through in his speech. There is an assumption that council housing should be nothing more than a short-term privilege until people are ready to be moved on to the next poorly paid, insecure job in some other part of the country.
He was clearly astonished at the idea that "some of these people even pass these homes down to their children". Shock, horror!
In fact, alongside the NHS, the provision of thousands of homes for affordable rents was arguably the greatest achievement of post-war social democracy. An achievement the ConDems want to destroy.
Part of the plan for doing this is to try to sow divisions between those in a council dwelling and those waiting for one - as though the real problem wasn't the lack of a proper housebuilding programme.
Housing minister Grant Shapps characterises security of tenure as "an inefficient use of resources" - though strangely he doesn't seem to see Thatcher's systematic flogging off of thousands of council homes as "an inefficient use of resources". One might have expected a word of apology for this act of municipal asset-stripping, but no such luck.
Incredibly, Cameron and Shapps want to try and persuade us that mortgaged ownership is the only valid form of long-term tenure, despite the crash in the housing market and the banking crisis largely caused by toxic debt.
They have to be stopped.
1 comment:
But did'nt they argue that it was to make better use of housing i.e. families forced to living in housing too small for them while some live in housing far bigger than their basic needs.
You may say that that all tory lies and their real agenda is against making social housing a comfortable and supported option for people.
But whats your position on that situation - should we allow the existing housing stock to be just as it is - or allow people to move in order to make better use of existing resources ?
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