Do you want to discuss boring politics? (19 Viewers)

Grendel said:

Second homes are needed to generate spending in that area

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

There’s a shortage of 1.5m houses and that number is increasing. There aren’t that many houses left empty.

Where there are empty houses, they don’t tend to be in places that people want to live in as the areas tend to be places with high levels of economic inactivity.

Even in London, where the super rich have unoccupied properties, these aren’t properties that many could afford on the open market.

The fundamental issue remains that there aren’t enough houses being built to match the demand.

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

Landlords have no bearing on the overall housing stock. The issue this country faces is that there’s a huge ‘deficit’ because the rate of which houses are built is not keeping up with the number of people that need houses. This fundamental issue would remain even if second home ownership was banned completely. If there’s not enough houses, prices become inflated.

You can accuse landlords of profiteering if you want (respectfully disagree), that’s only possible if there’s a general lack of housing provision. Ironically, some of the newer regulations and costs with being a landlord has pushed out private landlords and the sector has become more corporatised and more profit-driven.

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Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:

Well, they do have a bearing on it. Sure there are numerous other factors, especially regarding supply including developers building too slowly for whatever reason (profit/land value, regulation etc) but they do certainly affect the demand. If people want to buy numerous homes then demand is obviously going to be way higher than if every person only wanted to buy one.

To nick the Snickers analogy from another thread, it's like a shop has a box of Snickers, RRP £1 per bar. Not enough for everyone that wants one though. However, a small group of people get hold of most of that box of Snickers because they offer to pay £1.50 for each bar. This means even more people that wanted a Snickers now can't get one because there's even less to go around.

Then those first few people who bought most of the stock are outside the shop offering them for £2, so people have to either fork out double or share a bar with someone else even though they don't want to. And you have to buy a replacement bar because they want to keep the value of their asset.

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rob9872 said:

All I keep reading is build more houses. Without wanting to sound all Reform, could we not consider perhaps refusing entry for a few years? I keep reading immigration is good, but we don't have the infrastructure to support any more yet. I do understand the need for NHS workers etc, but it's a circular argument as the more that come, the more NHS we need and all other services too. Perhaps a pause for a few years until we've sorted our own mess and can then be more welcoming and ready to accept a new influx.

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Sky Blue Pete said:

It’s an interesting argument but most of the numbers are things that we would want to actively encourage
Students
Workers in industries with gaps

the numbers coming in on boats is a tiny fraction many of whom are actually happy to be in the system rather than trying to hide under or in the back of Lorries because they want to claim asylum, many of whom are now being dealt with and returned home or being successful

so who should we stop coming in and how do we deal with the consequences

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rob9872 said:

I didn't mention boats, I'm talking any migration. Just paused, not stopped. 5 years would probably fix most things. Well then have a better environment to welcome those who do come.

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shmmeee said:

Think we need a couple of hundred thousand to break even cos of deaths and low birth rate.

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Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:

You reckon? 5 years isn't that long. Given how long it's taking to do some infrastructure projects you really think 5 years is enough to solve the migration problem?

After five years there'd just be calls to extend it, most probably because the issue was still there or even if it wasn't there are the likes of Farage who are just anti-immigration full stop. If it had improved they'd claim look how good it has got without the migrants so why do we want to open the borders again or if it wasn't any better they'd just say we haven't sorted the problem and we still need to stop them coming.

They're a bogeyman for people like farage to easily blame regardless of the issue or the outcome.

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SBT said:

Police told of racist attack weeks before Bhim Kohli killed

Another Asian man was assaulted by two boys two weeks before Bhim Kohli was fatally attacked.

www.bbc.co.uk

Feels like an elderly man being kicked to death by two teenagers while out walking his dog in what was potentially a racially motivated attack should have been a bigger story than it has been tbh

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SBT said:

Police told of racist attack weeks before Bhim Kohli killed

Another Asian man was assaulted by two boys two weeks before Bhim Kohli was fatally attacked.

www.bbc.co.uk

Feels like an elderly man being kicked to death by two teenagers while out walking his dog in what was potentially a racially motivated attack should have been a bigger story than it has been tbh

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PC Tasered St Leonards amputee, 92, in wheelchair, court hears - BBC News

Donald Burgess, who had one leg and was in poor health, was also pepper sprayed in his care home.

www.bbc.co.uk

SBT said:

Police told of racist attack weeks before Bhim Kohli killed

Another Asian man was assaulted by two boys two weeks before Bhim Kohli was fatally attacked.

www.bbc.co.uk

Feels like an elderly man being kicked to death by two teenagers while out walking his dog in what was potentially a racially motivated attack should have been a bigger story than it has been tbh

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Captain Dart said:

Did you hear about this one?

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Captain Dart said:

Did you hear about this one?

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

Landlords have no bearing on the overall housing stock. The issue this country faces is that there’s a huge ‘deficit’ because the rate of which houses are built is not keeping up with the number of people that need houses. This fundamental issue would remain even if second home ownership was banned completely. If there’s not enough houses, prices become inflated.

You can accuse landlords of profiteering if you want (respectfully disagree), that’s only possible if there’s a general lack of housing provision. Ironically, some of the newer regulations and costs with being a landlord has pushed out private landlords and the sector has become more corporatised and more profit-driven.

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Captain Dart said:

Did you hear about this one?

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shmmeee said:

1-1 your move non-white ppl

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shmmeee said:

'Free school meal boost will put £500 in parents’ pockets and help kids achieve'

Keir Starmer writes for the Mirror that 'it’s common sense that children can’t do well at school if they’re hungry' as he unveiled a major change to free school meal rules

www.mirror.co.uk

Good news. But I’ll await the expert judgement on here that it’s proof Starmer is in the pocket of big poor kid, or perhaps fretting a foreign child might benefit accidentally.

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fernandopartridge said:

Of course they do. The ability of people to have 'buy to let' mortgages creates artificial demand for the purchase of houses which drives price inflation, and to complete the cycle drives more people into needing to rent privately.

I agree on your second paragraph though, there needs to be significant provision of social housing in all areas of England. I don't know why the government is relying on the big housebuilders to reverse their own business models and build en masse, it just will not happen.

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

It’s not artificial demand if there’s a general shortage of housing. The housing deficit was at 1.5m or so and has grown since.

Angela Rayner was tied in knots when a Sky journalist pointed out that even if Labour met the 1.5m house building target, if there is 2.5m million arrivals as the government projects… its not improving the housing situation. It’s probably not coincidence that after this, her internal memos suggested cutting benefits for migrants.

The housing shortage inflates pricing, which favours home owners / landlords who can leverage their assets and positive equity to take credit to expand. Likewise, with housing associations. So I understand the more left wing arguments but it ignores the elephant in the room: net migration is growing at a higher rate than houses being built. Especially when there are areas up and down the country where social housing is disproportionately taken up by people born abroad (47.6% in London). This extends to various public services like policing, GPs, hospitals and so on.

Temperamentally, I’m v pro-immigration but it’s clear that our systems are inherently broken and the current level of net migration is unsustainable.

There is a model for left wing governments to follow on this: Denmark (and even Old Labour trade unionist approaches to migration).

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shmmeee said:

The two are separate. Like public service provision. We can build enough we choose not to and even if we don’t that’s not an excuse not to build any. Even if we robs total shutdown of immigration we’d still need millions of homes building.

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

This is true to an extent. Building houses is not as simple as ‘just build’. This government is demonstrating that it takes more than good intentions and wishful thinking. Even with Rayner’s plans to build new towns, the sewage infrastructure is holding that back.

Public finances are already under a lot of pressure. The government is borrowing more than it planned and is likely to raise taxes to pay for this, their U-turns on benefit cuts and public sector wages. Inflation is also higher than planned and that would cause more calls to raise public sector wages, it’s a cylindrical cycle. The tax take can’t really grow much further either.

Again, if the government has to expand the state massively to pay for a population explosion primarily driven by net migration… then perhaps the economic arguments for mass immigration over the last 20-30 years were built on sand.

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

This is true to an extent. Building houses is not as simple as ‘just build’. This government is demonstrating that it takes more than good intentions and wishful thinking. Even with Rayner’s plans to build new towns, the sewage infrastructure is holding that back.

Public finances are already under a lot of pressure. The government is borrowing more than it planned and is likely to raise taxes to pay for this, their U-turns on benefit cuts and public sector wages. Inflation is also higher than planned and that would cause more calls to raise public sector wages, it’s a cylindrical cycle. The tax take can’t really grow much further either.

Again, if the government has to expand the state massively to pay for a population explosion primarily driven by net migration… then perhaps the economic arguments for mass immigration over the last 20-30 years were built on sand.

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fernandopartridge said:

Population explosion? The current levels of population growth are not high at all by modern day standards. The rate of growth has been in decline for quite a long period actually.

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shmmeee said:

Excuses excuses.

I know you’re obsessed with foreigners but the housing crisis started decades before any spike in immigration.

Who said anything about expanding the size of the state? Just keeping pace would be fine. Where were these whines during the baby boom years or hell during the 1800s when the population exploded?

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MalcSB said:

Population growth seems quite a lot higher than when most on here would consider to be optimum house price era of late 70s.
QED?

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MalcSB said:

Was there an alleged impact on standards of living during those periods?

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MalcSB said:

Was there an alleged impact on standards of living during those periods?

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fernandopartridge said:

View attachment 43478

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Mucca Mad Boys said:

This is true to an extent. Building houses is not as simple as ‘just build’. This government is demonstrating that it takes more than good intentions and wishful thinking. Even with Rayner’s plans to build new towns, the sewage infrastructure is holding that back.

Public finances are already under a lot of pressure. The government is borrowing more than it planned and is likely to raise taxes to pay for this, their U-turns on benefit cuts and public sector wages. Inflation is also higher than planned and that would cause more calls to raise public sector wages, it’s a cylindrical cycle. The tax take can’t really grow much further either.

Again, if the government has to expand the state massively to pay for a population explosion primarily driven by net migration… then perhaps the economic arguments for mass immigration over the last 20-30 years were built on sand.

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SBAndy said:

The takeaway from this is that by effectively kicking the can down the road for 30 years (if not more) it’s meant that the level of investment to now bridge the gap is so eye-watering that it’s ‘difficult’ to justify a business case.

We’ve fucked it.

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