What to do about housing.

 

One on the most serious problems facing our society is the difficulty young people have in buying or renting at a reasonable price somewhere to live independently.  Instead thousands are being ripped off by “buy to let” landlords in often substandard  premises.

The simplistic view is that the problem is essentially one of supply and demand: build more houses and it will go away.  It won’t.

Hettie O’Brien, in her fascinating account of “The Asset Class” published earlier this year (W&N),  vividly compares the problem with the Bengal famine; “[L]ack of food was a minor factor compared with people’s inability pay for it. . . .[P]eople [can] be surrounded by empty buildings and still have nowhere to live.” (Page 113)

An article in the Yorkshire Post (Need must be the driver of housing policy, not greed, 03/11/ 25) by Andy brown, a councillor for the Green party in North Yorkshire, deals imaginative and constructively with the  problem.

First he examines  the policies of the Conservative and Labour parties. The Conservative policy is to abolish stamp duty. For those with access to money (bank of Mum and Dad?) this will simply increase the amount available to buy a house, so will force the prices up, making the problem worse for those without.

Labour ‘s policy is to relax planning  regulations (put a stop to middle-class nimbyism?)  Cllr Brown points out that this isn’t really the major problem.  “Since 2015 over 1.2 million planning permissions have been granted for homes that have not been built.”

The positive suggestions in his article are:

1.    1. Remove planning permissions on land where homes have not been built after a reasonable time.  (The present rule is that all that needs to have happened is “a bit of clearance taking place” and the permission last for ever.)

2.    2. There are over 70 000 homes used only occasionally as second homes.  Raise taxes on these along with . . .

3.    3 . . . Air B&Bs. . .

4.    4. . .and all empty properties.

5.   5  Insist that all new housing developments include at least 40% of “affordable” homes (and - my addition - enforce it.  Developers often wriggle out of it once building has started.)

6.    6. Allocate a significant proportion of “affordable homes” to housing associations and councils for renting.

7.    7. Scrap the sale of council houses. (Labour has done this for new council houses.  Where existing council houses are sold - at modest discounts - the revenues should be used by the council to build more houses for renting.)

8.   8. Enable local authorities  to become major houses builders once again (my addition – as part of mixed estates rather than the post war “one class” estates which often became sink areas.)

I would add to the above that in the long run and before we’re all dead we should steer the housing market away from the possession a house being a cash cow for unearned income to be  milked by the next generation (or next but one) to simply being the use of a machine in which to live comfortably and securely.  Not to do this means that we perpetuate a class division, not the workers and bosses so beloved of  Labour Party folk law, but of those whose parents/grandparents owned property and those who didn’t.

This  wlll, of course, involve the taxation of the increment of property prices and will need brave and persuasive politicians to challenge the vested interests of the “property owning” section of our society so beloved of Mrs Thatcher and her remaining disciples

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir Keir's government assessed.

 

After almost two years in office, and with the shadows lengthening around it, now seems a good time to attempt a fair assessment on Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.

In broad-brush terms  he has not led us into an illegal war, mishandled a pandemic or crashed the economy.  By comparison with some of his recent predecessors, these must surely count as strong plusses.  In addition he has played a respectable role in foreign affairs and steered a careful course in avoiding involvement in America’s illegal invasion of Iran and promoting independent European security.

 In a recent (15^th May) article on Guardian On-line Polly Toynbee has listed well over a dozen of what she regards as achievements appropriate for a Labour government.  The main ones are:

·       Strengthening employment rights;

·       Restricting zero-hours contracts;

·       Increasing the minimum wage;

·       Strengthening renters’ rights and ending no-fault evictions

·       Ending new leasehold tenancies;

·       Restricting  the sale of new council houses;

·       Ending the two-child benefit cap;

·       Promotion of green energy;

·       Re-introducing “Best” Start family hubs;

·       Bringing rail services back into public ownership;

·       Banning conversion therapy for gays and transgender people;

·       Providing breakfast clubs for primary school children.

However (the list that follows is mine, not M/s Toynbee’s)

·       Ending the iniquitous two child benefit cap was too late: it should have been done on the first morning of office;

·       The Overseas Aid Budget, already reduced by the Tories form 0.7% of GDP, was further reduced to 0.3%.  Even David Cameron said we should not solve the UK’s fiscal problems on the backs of the world’s poorest;

·       The negative rhetoric on migration, and in particular the “island of strangers” speech, was a disgraceful attempt to fend off  the far right;

·       The massacring of the people of Gaza remained uncondemned;

·       Civil liberties and the right to protest have been restricted.

·       The declaration of Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation, ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, is unworthy and remains Labour policy.

·       The opportunity to escape  the restriction placed on tax increases  thought necessary to win the election, was twice missed, first on the “discovery” of the £20bn “black hole” and then the withdrawal of US support for the defence of Europe.

·       Over-timid attempts to re-align with the European Union.

T  There have been  far too many "u-turns."  One or two indicates that a government is listening and prepared to be responsive.  Too may indicates poor preparation. 

Along with these lapses, unfortunate to say the least, there has been a complete lack  of any attempt to introduce the root and branch reforms which are necessary to  facilitate effective and responsible government. “Good chaps” can no longer be relied upon. We were promised “change” but all Labour has done is tinker at the edges.  Where are the measures to:

·       Reform parliament and make it an effective scrutineer of the government;

·       Stop the “churn”  in both government and the civil service;

·       Ensure responsible ownership and behaviour of the media;

·       Devolve genuine powers and responsibility to the nations, regions and local areas;

·       Reform our outdated taxation system, and end the childish delusion that we can have a decent society without paying for it;

·       Adopt an electoral system that will ensure fair representation  in a society where not two but five (and in some parts seven) parties compete?

On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give the government under Starmer about 5.  I’m not confident Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner would do any better. Andy Burnham or Ed Miliband might.

 

Espensive manoeuvring

 In 2016 the television actress Tracy Brabin was elected as Labour MP for Batley and Spen, the constituency in which I live. (It has now been re-drawn to  become Spen Valley.).  In 2022 M/s Brabin decided she would rather be, or the Labour Party thought she had the best chance of winning the election for, the Mayor West Yorkshire.  

She did win, so resigned as our MP and was replaced after a by-election by another Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater.

The average public cost of a parliamentary by-election is just short of a quarter of a million ponds. (£228, 000 -  it varies with the number of candidates, as a large part of the cost is the Freepost to which each candidate is entitled.)  

 I thought at the time that the Labour party should have born  the public cost of this by-election. 

There was no need for it other than the internal manoeuvrings  of the Labour party.  It arose only becasue the Labour Party felt that Miss Brabin had the best chance of winning, or she preferred the job and she was prepared to break the promises she had made to the electorate of Batley and Spen if she got it.

 This argument applies to the creation of a vacancy in the Makerfield constituency  in order to give Andy Burnham an opportunity to re-enter parliament and challenge Sir Keir Starmer for his job.  

There is no need for it other than that sections of the Labour party think it would be to their advantage.  

So they should pay the public cost.

 Much more expensively, should Mr Burnham win the Makerfield seat he will have to resign as mayor of Manchester and the by-election to replace him is estimated to cost the public purse almost five million pounds (£5 000 000 - it's a very large electorate.)

I'm sure these manoeuvrings feed the public's distrust of our apolitical system.   Politicians  abuse it for what we see as their "games."  It's not just the cost, but the fact that the actors as so willing to break the promisees of devoted service they have made to their previous constituents in order to further their careers.

 And the manoeuvrings are not  always successful.

Way back in 1964 the Labour Party under Huddersfield's own Harold Wilson won the general election (with a narrow majority of four.) But their shadow foreign secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, failed to win his seat of Smethwick after a bitter and racist Tory campaign. 

Gordon Walker was a senior Labour figure who had been expected to become foreign secretary. A "vacancy" was created  for him a a safe constituency, Leyton, by transferring the Labour winner to the Lords.

PGW fought the by-election - and lost.

The electorate didn't like being manipulated.

 Things may not have changed. 

 

How to be a better Prime Minister

 

As I start writing this (11h15 on Thursday 14^th May) no Labour MP has yet triggered a leadership contest.  Whether they do or don’t, here is some advice to Sir Keir Starmer or whoever replaces him.

Look at the careers of the five previous prime-ministers: Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak.  They have each been crashing failures and ousted in ignominy.

 One if the reasons why is they have tried to do too much, be centre stage, and made the job an impossible one beyond the resources of one person.  (The possible exception is Johnson, who thought he didn’t need to do much, just be centre stage.)

So if there were an international crisis, there was the PM, seen to be jetting off to wherever,(we have  foreign secretary for that); a medical crisis, there’s the PM in a white coat, (we have a health secretary for that); an industrial crisis, there’s the PM adorned in hard hat and high-viz jacket (we have an industry  secretary for that); some natural tragedy, there’s the PM  dripping sympathy and assurances that the thoughts  and prayers of the nation are with the victims,(we have a royal family for that, and they do it very well.)

Let us go back to the drawing-board, in this case the Construction.

Ours is not a presidential system, but a cabinet system.  The prime minister  is not exactly the boss, but the “first among equals” (the clue is in the title). His/her job is to prioritise, encourage, cajole, warn  and , when necessary, replace his/her  colleagues.

Then set back and let them get on with the job. If they succeed they get the glory and the government gets the credit.

Certainly that seems to have been the case  in my childhood. 

The minister  who enabled me and my cohort to have a free secondary education was R A Butler.  He wasn’t even in the government when his famous 1944 Education Act was implemented.

Nye Bevan created the National Health Service which has cared for our bodies (and some minds) ever since, and is regarded by many as the Labour Party’s greatest achievement.

Manny Shinwell steered us through the infamous cold spell and resulting  energy and transport crisis of the winter of 1946/7.  ( Hardy any houses had central eating or double glazing and most were heated by one central coal fire, but coal was hard to get. You boomer and generations x, y z and whatnot, nor present day politicians, haven’t a clue what real austerity is.)

The great foreign secretary Ernest Bevin  secured us in the Atlantic Alliance and, for better or worse,  ensured we had our own atomic bomb so that he did not “go naked into the conference chamber."

 I can’t recall what Hugh Gaitskell did to come to our notice, but he was famous enough to feature in a parody Good King Wenceslaus (When old Gaitskell came  in sight, Gathering winter fu – u-  el!).

 Oh yes, and there was a prime minister.  He was Mr Attlee, quiet and self-effacing.  Later he wrote his own epitaph:

Few thought he was even a starter,

There were those who thought themselves smarter, 

But he ended P.M.

C.H. and O.M.

And an earl and a knight of the garter.

 

So, Sir Keir if you survive, and if not whoever succeeds you, please don’t rush around trying to look powerful: set priorities, sit back, pull strings and let your colleagues  bloom.