CoffeeHousers' Wall, 29 September - 5 October

dalesman

If the Government thought there bail-out of B & B was going to calm the market, they were wrong.

The FTSE is down 161.75 to 4926.72 now.

dalesman

George Osborne has just stopped speaking. The things he says are ok, but he's certainly not an inspirational speaker.

Cameron should bring back a couple of the big beasts and David Davis to beef up his shadow cabinet.

David

dalesman, I don't really care if he's an inspirational speaker; it's what he has to say that's the point. And to be honest, Davis is even less of an inspirational speaker than Osborne.

Good speech. BBC obviously tried to ignore it by continually asking Boris Johnson if he was split with Cameron, but I think that'll go down well in the country at large. Nice, sensible, practical things to help people, with the clear goal of being able to really cut taxes when the books are looking better.

mckenzie

Without the aid of a 'Golden Parachute', like the trapeze artist without a safety net, I guess the markets will be cautious to the point of having a noticeable effect on audience participation.
Expect much more shit to pass through the fan.

Lord Elvis of Paisley

George Osborne just threw a hand grenade into Labour HQ with his Council Tax plan. Tee hee hee. Let's see Labouir go on the attack to defend CT rises...

Neil Turner

I like what I'm hearing from the Tories.

However, before they get my vote, I need to know that they will adopt a tough stance on the EU, particularly addresing loss of Parliamentary sovereignty, fishing waters, and repealing Human Rights legislation

Tiberius

I agree with David over Osborne and Davis.

DD has a technique which allows his a voice to drop at the end of a sentence, which sometimes makes his conclusion barely audible. It's a good defensive mechanism, but there are times when you want a clear statement.

James

In a sort of perverse sense I am glad we are going through this credit realignment now. It shows Prime Minster Brown in his true colours, a credit junkie looking for his next fix. Prudence Brown indeed. A credit junkie in charge of our country is no good for any of us.

David

Your Elvisness, no doubt they will also then pledge to freeze council tax at the next pre-budget report. They have so little shame it wouldn't be a surprise in the slighest. I also love the way they are demanding to know how Osborne will pay for this, when he has already done so. Has anyone costed all the nonsense Gordon came up with last week?

Bart

Can someone please give a clear explanation of what this new council tax policy actually is. At the moment I have the idea that it's a great deal less than meets the eye. But maybe I'm just thick.

Talia

any views on tonight's Dispatches about evil short-selling hedge-fund managers bankrolling the Tories?

geoff DC

Just heard the lansley speech. You couldnt make this stuff up!

Having lambasted the Darzi review, Andrew Lansley is ruthlessly stealing all the policies - from nurses running their own services to more choice of treatment. Brilliant!

And whats more, he wants to guarantee people their own room. This from the man who is so opposed to targets he is not even prepared to guarantee cancer patients they will still be able to see a cancer specialist within 2 weeks!

I think lansley is starting to look like a joke figure on the NHS. Criticising the govt then copying their policies. Cosying up to the BMA then trying to talk tough on reform. Spending billions more money at a time when debt is rising.

It also looks like he is dropping his one original policy (allowiing hospitals to borrow against their assets) in favour of a review of the system.

dalesman

Bart: It's less than meets the eye in that it's probably only worth about £1.50 per week per household.

But it's still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

All we get from NuLab is take, take, take

strapworld

geoff DC is obviously part of Draper's Blog Patrol from the hell hole below Brown's Bunker!!

Lansley, I can tell you, as someone with great expereinece of working within the NHS, is highly regarded by the people that matter:- The Doctors/Nurses and support staff whom he values.

The people that have to worry are the Quango holders and Executives going from job to job (even when they fail!!).

Draper has got to work quickly, it appears. Just look at the comments page on SKY. From constant anti Brown contributors it has suddenly changed.

Now, I know, from my friends and acquaintances and from theirs, that the mood against Brown has not changed at all. In fact it has hardened. This nonsense being played out by Draper and Co will prove to be a massive own goal. Lets face it Draper failed big time before he is heading for the same result with this childish nonsense!

Martin Cox

The current economic situation places an obligation on our rulers to ensure that every pound they spend is value for taxpayers' money. The cash guzzling Sacred Cows should either be killed or put on rations, starting with the corrupt and undemocratic EU, and the ineffectual UN.
Gordon Brown's repeated rant about '60% of our trade is with the EU' and 'x-hundred thousand jobs depend on the EU' should be teste for their fictional content.
More than half the 'trade' is in imports, which would be available to us, and any other buyer, without EU membership, and the jobs of the people handling the trade would continue. Does Brown imply that we could no longer buy Spanish fruit, French wine or German cars? We could probably economise on many items buy expanding other markets.
The proportion of the trade in exports ia by no means all to the EU: much of it is only through the channel ports, trans-shipped to other parts of the world, and falsely claimed as EU trade.
Salaries would be saved from the loss of all EU employees from this country, including those in the powerless peripatetic parliament, and the thousands of jobsworths zealously administering the crackpot EU regulations, endorsed by Brown/Blair regardless of the adverse consequences: HIPs, windmills and bio-fuels, phoney asbestos, closed Post Offices, and thousands more.
The £12 billion (and rising) annual subscription to the EU club is only the tip of the costs. Think what we cluld do with the saved money: build hopitals without hire purchase, fund proper pensions, get better MPs by paying more to far fewer, of real ability and intelligence, perhaps.

Man_on _Richmond_Bridge

Fraser when your bored on your day off can you do an article on His Gordiness on:

1) Every decision he has made a Chancellor
2) The alternatives to the decision made
3) The cost of the actual decision made compared to the alternatives
4) the cost difference between actual and alternative
5) Display it as a supermarket bill so we can see the final total and then show us the credit card payments (debt) we have racked up to pay the bill
6) Repeat 1 - 5 for the period he has been Prime Minister

TrevorsDen

Bart - it may be indeed that you are thick, but perhaps you are a little deaf.

The policy is - COUNCIL TAX FREEZE FOR TWO YEARS --- provided your council make 2.5% savings the govt will match it.

So I suppose if you are with a Labour Council that does not believe in savings you will not get a freeze. On the other hand there ought not to be too many of them after next May.

Max Kaye

geoff DC,

Giving all patients their own rooms is easy: just use the ones that will become vacant when 10s of thousands of NHS 'managers' are 'let go'

Stop the rot

Heard of section 106 agreements? Lucky you.

You may, though, have heard of house prices, so stick around.

Section 106 is one of the most devious bits of legislation ever passed by Labour. It is a stealth tax and social engineering programme wrapped into one poisonous, invisible package.

Here’s how it works. Labour wanted to raise the level of council houses for its state clients – who comprise many of its core voters – but didn’t dare spend tax on this, otherwise it would show up on the balance sheet – and we don’t want the ‘hard-working families’, as Mr Brown pretends to be concerned about, to find out about all the homes for layabouts they’d be funding.

Labour’s social engineering target was to create what it calls ‘mixed communities’, that is, it wanted put layabout workshy scum into council houses two doors down from people who work to pay for a mortgage. Middle class areas tend to have less crime, so let’s let them have their fair share of anti-social misery as well, eh?

But how do you do this? Simple. You pass a piece of legislation, known as a 106 agreement, which stipulates that all private housing estate developments must include a certain percentage of ‘social housing’ – social housing is the new name for council housing.

The stealth tax element comes because the developer has to pass the cost on for the ‘social homes’ in each development to… you guessed it, dumb old you and me who might buy a home on the new development. After all, how many people are familiar with ‘section 106’? How many people who have bought these homes know they are next to new social homes? I doubt they were told at the sales pitch.

So what do you think your spanking new home will be worth once people realise there are council tenants nearby? You’re paying a mortgage for yourself, your taxes for your benefit-scrounging neighbours and, if they’re the ASBO type, you might even pay with your life.

And what happens if you’re a homeowner on one of these new section 106 homes in the downturn and you get negative equity? Well, you don’t qualify for social housing, because you were dumb enough to go out and get a mortgage and go to work. Silly you.

So you paid for your council house neighbours on the way in and, if you have to leave a property thanks to negative equity caused by the downturn or a postcode devalued by anti-social behaviour, you’ll pay on the way out with negative equity. They, on the other hand, won’t pay at all. Someone’s got to pay for New Labour’s social engineering and they always turn to the Muggins middles classes since they’re the easiest to fleece.

This was the reason why Caroline Flint got herself into such a tizzy at last week’s Labour conference and said the Labour Party’s new build home target of 3 million homes will be reached. Labour has inextricably linked the swelling of its voter base via council housing to the private sector’s ability to build more new homes. Labour desperately needs to shore up that voter base but it cannot possibly put spending on council homes on the balance sheet where the public could see just how much more money they’ve wasted.

That is why Labour is desperately trying to get the developers to keep on building, which, of course, will pull house prices down more dramatically.

If you are having nightmares about negative equity or paying the mortgage, you might like to kick yourself for being such a fool and look at this picture of a tattooed single mother paying £75 per week to live in a luxury flat near Sandbanks built using a section 106 agreement while you slog your guts out to pay for her and the rest of Labour’s clientele:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025438/Pictured-The-luxury-council-flats-rented-tenants-just-75-week.html

Oh, and have a nice day.

Nick Kaplan

Stop the rot; I completely agree that section 106 agreements are a particularly pernicious piece of legislation that amount to little more than blackmail. Not only do they force private companies to build ‘affordable homes’ (at the expense of all those in the now unaffordable ones) they also require that private contractors pay contributions to new school facilities and other local amenities. The result of this is simple, a restriction in the housing supply, especially when combined by other ludicrously strict rules set up to protect unnecessarily vast areas of greenbelt. Why would companies build more houses when the government stipulates that up to 25% of their effort should not be rewarded with a profit?

When this restriction in the housing supply is combined with a massive boom in housing demand, brought about by open door mass immigration, low interest rates and the promise of ‘no more boom and bust (encouraging people to take out ever higher mortgages), and the destruction of the private pensions (so the only investment for the future is property), simple economics says house prices will sky rocket. And, surprise surprise that is exactly what happened. This is one of the key reasons for the credit crunch because it encouraged people to take out huge mortgages which they had no chance of paying back. This aspect of the credit crunch is entirely down to stupid, irresponsible social engineering from a government that never really gave up on socialism.

Verity

HOUSE OF REPS AND BAILOUT

From a commenter on LGF on the failure of the bailout to get past the House of Representatives. He quotes Republican Jeb Hensarling of Texas, "a leading conservative".

"The bill puts the country on the slippery slope to socialism. If you lose your ability to fail, soon you will lose your ability to succeed."

Verity

HOUSE OF REPS BAILOUT

Many Dems now changing their vote. "I was for it, but now I'm agin' it," is doubtless what they will be telling their constituents. No one wants to be on the losing team.

Nancy Pelosi (D) trying to strongarm them back in ...

ACORN (Association of Community Organisers ...) Hi, Obama! - getting the blame for this banking crisis ...

Augustus

Even if a restructering fund to provide banks with capital in return for equity succeeds, policy makers are still making this stuff up as they go along.

At the height of the American housing boom, up to $2,000bn of mortgage-backed securities were being issued each year. and with default rates on other lending also soaring, including credit cards, commercial and industrial loans, who knows where it could end? Even if prices of mortgage-backed securities are stabilised, the market for other types of securities could seize up. Furthermore, as the AIG rescue showed, it's not just bank balance sheets that needed cleaning up. lots of insurers, pension funds and mutual funds are also in one heck of a mess.

Susan Hill

Bang on cure, daft Dave starts on about climate change and other global warming cr...p - no 3rd runway, high speed rail links instead... er.. right, how exactly does this help people wanting to fly to New York ? Environmental rubbish won`t help the economy or business and right now people don`t want to hear another WORD about climate change and other scams, they want to know if they will have a job next month and how to feed their families and pay for heating this winter. Looney Dave and his silly windmills on his house is way off what really matters to people. Green stuff is the hobby of a rich nation in the good times. Which we these are not.

Verity

Thanks to ACORN and Obamarama and his best mates,other "Community Organisers" who went round strong arming banks and mortgage companies to finance insane deals in unstable neighbourhoods.

Hysteria

we're stuffed - just completely and utterly stuffed.......

Obama will win in November - and then we'll be stuffed some more.....

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, DD accounted for Liar Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Liar Beverley Hughes and possibly one or two others more I have forgotten.

On the other hand your mates Dave and Boy George have conspicuously failed to do for Gordon despite his having driven the British economy off a cliff.

By now you and your gang should be slavering with anticipation for 2010 but given the nature of the leadership of HM's Lame and Lamentable Opposition, Labour, and even Gordon, still have everything to play for.

C'mon, Tiberius, sometimes at 3 am don't even you wonder about your wonder boy.

PS Don't forget DD's still out there!

Nick Kaplan

Fraser, James, Peter, any of you guys. When is someone going to write a blog detailing the complicity of the Democrats and their misguided Community Reinvestment Act in the Credit Crunch?

If you are unaware of this disastrous bit of social engineering, which I have written about here before, then watch this... It’s very enlightening:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/burning_down_the_house.html

Frank P

Stop the Rot

I thought at first you were Richard Littlejohn, then I thought - nah! He wouldn't pen a piece like that for nowt!

Great essay and very informative and deliciously sardonic too, thank you. It should be published again in the magazine and you should be paid for it. Not as much as RL get's paid though, or I won't be able to afford the subscription next year.

Marian C

Stop the Rot & Nick Kaplin:- Great comments from both of you. Personally, I had never heard of section 106 before, so thank you very much to both of you. It certainly does answer a lot of questions

Paul B

Breaking news that the Gurkhas have won their high court test to obtain the right to settle in th UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7644441.stm

Great news- shame on the Browns Bullys for even contemplating taking them to court, let alone doing so.

Raffles

I would like to make my debut on this Wall by making a prediction..i predict that Bomber Brown will imminently ape the move by the Irish and give an unlimited gtee on all bank deposits for the next two years..he may even do as they have and extend that gtee to bank senior debt. It will have the added bonus of completely overshadowing the Tory Conference which is probably more crucial to Flash than injecting much needed confidence into the capital markets. My second prediction is that after the inital pop this gives him in the polls, he will soon be sunk again as it becomes more and more clear just how responsible he is for the mess we are in. The present financial circus will abate but the more complicated problems our real economy faces are much harder to fix and Brown is looking at all the wrong answers as usual.

Paul B

Hes not even asking the right questions

James

An interesting subject for discussion would be the possibility and make-up of a national government of unity.

Obviously, most people who contribute to this blog would not welcome this move - but would be an interesting discussion piece if the economy went from recession to depression and especially if this impacted the polls to the extent of creating a hung parliament at the next election.

What demands would a Tory opposition make? Would it remove Brown as a pre-condition (e.g. as per 1939 national government). Would they demand the chancerlor's role? What position would Cameron take? Are the parties too similar, or would the Tories make specific policy demands?

To be honest I can't see it happening - but an interesting debate nevertheless.

Verity

This is nicely mean. You might want to save it for your first cocktail. It's about Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?swf=http%3A//s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/cps-vfl56573.swf&video_id=3hSnEMV58F8&rel=1&eurl=http%3A//littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/&iurl=http%3A//i4.ytimg.com/vi/3hSnEMV58F8/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskLlS4pF1pCKVcaI1zRY6X2i&use_get_video_info=1&load_modules=1

Verity

As I predicted two weeks ago, there is now serious talk about Joe Biden stepping down ($$$$$$???) in favour of Hillary because he doesn't think he can handle a debate with Palin.

What do people think? My own opinion - this puts her between a rock and a hard place. Had she been invited onto the ticket originally, Obama would have been further ahead.

However, now he is plunged up to the neck in a new scandal every day - I read today that Bill Ayers may have written Dreams of My Father for him and I could believe this because Obama just isn't that bright, and Ayers, as contemptible as he is, is.

He was a strong-arm in Chicago for ACORN. I hear that Retzko or whatever his name is has begun to talk ...

So would Hillary want to plunge into all this? Or sit it out until 2012?

Problem for Hillary: In 2012, Palin will be running for President and she will have four years in the second top position under her belt. This trumps having been married to the man who was president 12 years earlier. The geo-political plates have shifted. Sarah Palin will be NOW. Hillary will look dusty and dated.

So - does she go for it now and probably lose and be tainted with the mud that is already beginning to cling to son of the prophet Barack? Or come back in four years and face a by-then seasoned Palin and an awesome VP candidate in the person of Bobby Jindal?

My feeling: if she doesn't go for it now, the moment will have gone. At this late stage, it will look like what it is - a panic move frp, an unconfident Obama whose judgement has been constantly showed to be wanting.

Interesting dilemma, if it happens.

Verity

And let us not forget ... although everyone seems to have ... the fragrant Rev Wright said he was going to be releasing a book in October ...

Buyer Beware

Can I just add to our little portfolio of notes on housing ‘investments’?

Richard Littlejohn today points out that added to what we already know, the government is going buy up a lot of the unsold new flats and houses to be ‘social’ homes. So if you have one of these new build flats already or are being offered one as a ‘bargain’, what do you think it will be worth once the area is stuffed full of people on the social?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1067051/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-This-time-losers-Gordon.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1065394/Upmarket-homeowners-fear-social-tenants-halve-500-000-house-values-time-buyers-dry-up.html

I learn from banking colleagues today that one of the things affecting mortgage provision is that nearly all lenders are refusing to give out mortgages on new build homes because, quite simply, the lenders don’t know what these things are worth or are likely to be worth.

First, you have the overall slump in house prices making them hard to value and second, you have the added uncertainty of what will happen to these homes once people realise they’ve bought among welfare scroungers and all the problems that almost inevitably will bring.

Remember, the effect of section 106 is everywhere. It’s just not obvious to the eye until places acquire a reputation.

To add to this, Labour is hell-bent on building its so-called ‘eco-towns’ (ie, put a green word on the name of something rubbish to make it sound great). Not only will these horrible places tear up our countryside, under Labour plans they could contain up to 50 per cent ‘social’ housing. The Local Government Association has warned that this could lead to ‘eco-slums’. I’ll say.

One proposed eco-slum, Pennbury in Leicestershire, proposes to put car parking spaces away from homes to encourage people to interact. So you can run a gauntlet of hoodies to and from work.

So what we have is a Labour government in despair that mortgage lenders aren’t lending, something caused by a combination of plummeting house prices caused by their own credit bubble and in the case of many new build homes by making lenders and buyers nervous of these enormous areas full of potential of slums thanks to social engineering 106 agreements. Labour has literally poisoned itself when it comes to getting a very important part of the housing market - new homes - moving again.

Like the man says: “You couldn’t make it up.”

Archbishop Cranmer

Cranmer will leave it to the expert Coffee Housers to comment on developments such as the bizarre return of Peter Mandelson to front-line British politics. He appears to possess more lives than Humphrey the cat. His Grace shall, however, say that he is saddened, though by no means surprised, that two of the Cabinet’s three Roman Catholics – Ruth Kelly and Des Browne - have felt unable to continue as members of the most profoundly anti-Christian government of modern times. Paul Murphy is now a very lonely figure indeed. It is no coincidence that these two leading Roman Catholics have left the Government before the return of the odious Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

But the abolition of the very meaty roles of Secretary of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has led to the formation of the rather androgynous ‘Ministry of the Nations’. And this has been followed by the announcement of a new ‘Department of Energy and Climate Change’, neutering the virility of potency with the gynogenesis of Mother Earth. And then the Department of Food and Agriculture (already dubbed the Department of Sweet F.A.). These developments are consistent with the eradication of patriarchy and the feminisation of the language of political discourse which have been a hallmark of New Labour.

The moment the Department of Education became the Department of Cushions and Soft Furnishings Children, Schools and Families, there was a move to incorporate breast-feeding and nappy-changing into the everyday concerns of Whitehall. It soon became apparent that there was an agenda towards all that was touchy-feely. And now we have a Secretary of State for Global Warming, it is apparent that touchy-feely is being enhanced by all that is soft, fluffy and pink – or green. And Cranmer wonders if this is an inevitable consequence of the positive discrimination which is ensuring more women and homosexuals in Parliament - and thus an increase in Parliament's oestrogen levels and the multiplying of those who are allegedly ‘in touch with their feminine side’ - at the manifest expense of testosterone and the macho buck, stag, cock and bull mentality which has so typified the workings of Parliament and the functioning of government.

But where will this end?

Will the Home Secretary become the Secretary of State for Domestic and Social Affairs?

Will the Department of Health become the Department of Illnesses, Ailments, Obesity and Clinical Depression?

Why not change the Department of Justice to the Department for Healing and Restoration?

The Department for Defence to the Department for Conflict Resolution?

Or the Department of the Environment to the Department of Rivers, Fields, Flowers and Trees?

Paul B

Anyone catch the Ian Hislops program on BBC4 yesterday (2/10) evening? Interesting show on the Lord Beeching report and the subsequent closures of many railway lines. I thought Hislop was quite fair in his approach, and although overall he came down against the cuts imposed, he did presented the issues and background & reasons Beeching came to his decisions in a balanced fashion. Hislop presented the program in usual droll & wry style, with a light humorous eyebrow raising tone, but managed to present the issues in an easy to understand way. For myself,, the program had increased appeal dueto its use of old newsreel and nostalgic reminisces of how the country used to be, in the age of when I was a child.

If you get a chance, do try to view it, even if it means setting the Sky+ for 0330am. Many of the issues within are still relevant to the modern day debates on transport provision.

OldBore

Archbish - the answer to your question is "yes" - an increase in fussy, bossy women of all sexes. But what are we to do about it

Tiberius

Youtube suffers from Islamocreep.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3130883/YouTube-censors-comedians-anti-Sharia-video-called-Welcome-to-Saudi-Britain.html