Margaret Thatcher made a 'GRAVE MISTAKE' and 'destroyed' the housing market - Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens dismisses the latest initiative to help young people get on the housing ladder.

#housing #economy #benefits #politics

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[bushwhackeddos.]

I’m sure giving half our social housing and rising to people born abroad, is helping tremendously.

[mknow]

I agree with Peter Hitchens on this but he left out one major reason why the prices will not come down on houses. Property investors will buy all the stock of houses that are built and keep the prices high to get rent income.

[patrickdoyle]

Hitchens is quite right. The developer will tell you more private supply will solve this. It won’t.

[murielbrown]

Over 70% in London and over 40% elswhere of our social housing stock is occupied by people who weren't even born in this country...absolute disgrace.

[Viewpoint]

The building I grew up in was built in the 30s. And it will still be there when all the 300grand shoeboxes are dust.

[enochpowell]

Under the current points based system, as shown in a recent example in Farnborough, those at the top of the housing list are typically asylum seekers/refugees and pregnant women. Whereas homeless British born males need not apply. For a council housing scheme to work the allocation system needs a complete overhaul. British homes for British people !

[OliverDesvauxdeMarigny-kqcb]

The day we moved from a model of owning a house to live in, to a model of buying a house to spin a profit, is where we went wrong

[pemj]

I'm with Peter . When thatcher sold off the housing stock it was on a promise that they would replace. But local authorities didn't do that they wasted the money. . Just as they with council tax . And not everyone can afford to buy a bloody house and private landlords are raking it in with housing benefit. And not everyone in council housing is claiming benefits. And a lot of housing associations are paying way over the top for rent and these are meant to be non profit organisations

[kahalani]

I grew up in a council house in the 70’s. I had a brilliant childhood and my parents couldn’t have afforded to buy a home. Selling off these houses and never replacing them was a huge mistake.

[sepo-lanto]

There's no point in having a house building campaign if said houses are all snapped up by multi-property private landlords; or, as in my home town, they are build-to-rent (a truly dystopian phenomenon) and thus do not offer even a token relief to local house prices; instead sucking money out of the local populace into overseas-registered property companies. We can't build our way out of the housing crisis - we do need more properties, right, but there needs to be a serious look at how the ownership of those properties will look once they are built. I am with Peter here.

[christinaedwards]

Problem with social housing is it will go based on ‘protected characteristics’ .
The indigenous will lose out.
So I’m happy to not have it.
Sick of giving *them* every advantage.
Working people just get the shaft every time.

[bobmartin]

Peter is 100% correct.
Secondly, modern house are absolute dross, dont buy one, buy an older one.

[mariewalmsley]

What planet are they on, people can't afford food let alone buy a house.

[bridiesmith]

Never mind house building. Why are developers not forced to build schools, drs surgeries.and hospital in new developments. These being built before the houses, before they build the houses. 1000’s being built near me. No hospitals, drs or schools on any of the plans.

[DaveHunt-ty]

Council houses control the rent and stops councils having to pay extortionate private rents. Private rented houses are being payed for by hard working people and the more privileged end up with a house completely pay off and sell it right from under the tenants. Definitely more council houses should be build and not sold off.

[dmd]

We have to stop paving over our country. An aspect of our country that makes us proud to be British is our beautiful countryside and landscapes and I think it a tragedy to be destroying it. Peter is right that the breakdown of the family unit and immigration is contributing to the problem.

[sgs]

The guy who thinks that it is better for banks to own houses rather than the State actually makes no sense. People living in decent houses in good communities is what matters, not getting obsessed with the means of ownership as the primary issue. Thanks for bringing this up Peter.

[handsandwiches]

Minimum wage doesn't cover anything either,

[mikemason]

So great to hear him saying something that I've been saying for years. We should never have sold off council housing. We've gone from councils collecting affordable rents to them paying unaffordable housing benefit. And once upon a time if you changed your job you could easily move to the area your new job was in. Now people have to travel miles to get to work because they can't afford to move. It was a much better system

[Perry-James-uk]

Wise words spoken wonderfully, thanks Peter