Boris v Dave, this time it’s serious

Peter From Maidstone

Boris Johnson is not a Conservative. He is only in it for what he can get out of it. He must be treated, discretely, as an enemy to Conservatism.

If he wants to pay out of his own pocket for thousands of people to stay in houses that most of us could never afford then he is welcome to. Otherwise it is only 'fair' to most of us who are paying all the money for benefits that those on benefits move to areas of cheaper housing.

Commentator

"But Cameron is not in a position to make concessions." Oh yes he is, he's in Brussels making them right now. No way will he allow our unwillingness to fork out yet more to the EU to get in the way of him, Clegg and Hague getting plum Euro jobs when they are dumped by the UK electorate.

Dimoto

If Boris is so worried about this, it really makes one wonder just how many people are living in high rent areas of London, on extortionate housing benefits.

The next question is, (putting aside the madness of expecting low paid workers to help fund this), how do people in the rest of the UK feel about this lavish waste of tax payers money - basically, the state propping up rents in central London.

TomTom

Boris has the ability to raise Funds through the Congestion Charge - let him pay housing benefit top-ups from Congestion Charging or a Council Tax Precept subject to Referendum.

There is no reason for Taxpayers to subsidise Council Tax with VAT (raised from 15% to 17.5% to cover the cost by Heseltine) then subsidise people to live in London's overheated property market and pay no Council Tax

strapworld

I do like Boris. BUT IF Cameron is a man he has got no other option but to have Boris thrown out of the Conservative Party and de-selected as the Tory party candidate for the London Mayoral election.

I have to say, on the issue of housing benefit, I support the coalition and Iain Dale on his blog the other day published a letter, from someone renting in London, who showed that the allowance agreed by the coalition was perfectly reasonable.

Boris must have been on something strong last evening!

Quite, quite ridiculous statement.

Now, let us see how strong this man Cameron is! He could deliver a double whammy today. Knock the EU for six and knock Boris out cold!

Will he?

James

Boris has a lot of support amongst grass-roots Tories - but on this issue he is 100% on the wrong-side of the argument.

People can put down very expensive roots using their own cash, not by using public-funded benefits. The cap is a sensible, fair and right-minded policy.

Time for Boris to retreat.

Mark Cannon

Oops! You got this one badly wrong. Paul Waugh - on the money as ever - has the correct story. And Boris has issued this statement:
'My consistent position has been that the government is absolutely right to reform the housing benefit system which has become completely unsustainable. I do not agree with the wild accusations from defenders of the current system that reform will lead to social cleansing. It will not, and if you listened carefully to what I said, no such exodus will take place on my watch."

Dimoto

Thanks for that Paul Cannon.
Did the Coffee House blog team just all get out of the bed the wrong side today, or have they declared October 28th, "Bash the Coalition" day ?

JasonDB

James,

Did you listen to what Boris said before writing the article? What he clearly explained was that he was in detailed and helpful negotiations with the DWP in order to mitigate the impact on the poor of London and listed a variety of ways in which he would seek to do that.

His comments about cleansing, although somewhat ill-chosen, were merely his way of dispelling concern that the policy would lead to the complete extrication of the poor from vast swathes of the capital.

I realise that the BBC took their normal course of decontextualisation, but I'd hope Spectator reporters wouldn't overreact in the same way!

Fergus Pickering

Well, that seems to wrap that one up, doesn't it?

mattghg

I wonder how many Kosovars there are living in London, who will be very upset at Boris' comparison of a housing benefit cap with what some of their families have been through?

Woody

I absolutely deplore the inflammatory and appallying language that is being used. People all over Europe who have suffered 'real' ethnic cleansing must be gravely insulted at politicians here using these words just to gain political advantage.
Boris Johnson and his family are just obsessed with gaining personal power.

Mark Cannon

No, Boris has not "blinked". He was misinterpreted and that misinterpretation was put to Downing Street who were not happy if what was put to them was correct. But it wasn't. Nor was this piece.

Benjit

Mark - you should read Nick Robinson's blog! Suggest you post your correction there too. I'm sure that will be their headline story at 6 and 10!

Alex Gallagher

"Blah, I was misquoted..blah blah blah...".

Tiberius

After reading that quotation and Boris' clarification, I'd agree with you, James, that Boris has blinked.

That is not surprising, because as much as I admire and respect London's mayor, he doesn't have the same level of inner steel as Dave.

Mike Thomas

Let me see, government reforms housing benefit. Tenants seek to move elsewhere, the smarter landlords cut rents to avoid loss of income or face having to compete in the private market.

Nothing to see here.... move along.

Fatbloke on tour

JF

You are closer to the truth than the revisionists suggest.

BJ = Needs to become PM.
He has neither the financial or the emotive reserves of either Dave, Sniffy or Cleggy.

He is on the make, at the double.
There is and always will be trouble at the top as long as there are three aspirant PM's waiting for Dave to crack, sorry spend more time with his family.

Getting closer by the day seemingly.

Sniffy wins if the numbers add up.
Cleggy wins if he can come out of his shadow.
BJ wins if he keeps his profile, they fail and the right wing accept him. All of this needs work in the interim and today's comments show that he is grafting away at his little project.

Consequently the Coalition have the TB / GB issue squared plus you have the situation in the Tory party where the true believers / right wing mentalists are only going along with Dave's airy fairy ideas as long as he is needed and he delivers on tax cuts.

The left in the Labour party were never as strong, had a leader in waiting or had the same basic contempt for the ruling clique as the right wing Tories have at the moment.

On the specifics of the comments, irony seldom translates well outside its intended audience. BJ should know that but he is a buffoon, an ambitious one at that but still a buffoon.

One thing is the changes to housing benefit will not be as easy and painless as the millionaires intoducing them think.

I fear that the Q+D viewpoint of the cut will be put off its stride when the changes start to effect working people who are down on their luck with either one wage lost or lower hours start to understand how much the changes will mean to them.

Any thoughts on a new buy to let craze, people under pressure sell to an agent who then rents the house back to the occupants at an mutually agreed rent that is supported by the state through the housing benefit mechanism.

So far everybody seems to be happy.

Agent = Gets an asset at an agreable price and has a ready long term tenant for the duration.
Householder = Sells without the spectre of re-possession and stays in the area, no issues with schools or nosey neighbours.
Bank = Mortgage paid off with no need to go to court.

There is more to this issue than the usual right wing mentalist benefit scrounging, feckless poor nonsense.

Ben G

Et tu Boris?

I hope Dave wins on this one. (And the way Boris is messing up London, I hope Ken wins in 2012.)

Mark Cannon - you are being more than a smidgeon naive.

David Lindsay

In 2007, Newcastle City Council, a Lib Dem flagship, demolished council flats in order to put up houses to be bought by middle-class Lib Dem voters. Why was this only reported in the North East? How many more of these stories about the new generation of yellow Shirley Porters are there around the country, each being reported only in its own locality, if at all? Clearly enough to influence Coalition policy in favour of such clearances.

It all goes back to the sale of council housing, of course. The Housing Benefit racket thus created is vastly more expensive than would be the maintenance of a stock of council housing. But why, when this certainly does not necessarily apply to a number of other local government services, is your local authority obliged to house you in its own area, no matter how expensive? Never mind in the most expensive wards. Not everywhere in the Kensington & Chelsea Borough can be quite as grand as all that.

Even in the old Derwentside days, never mind now that Durham County Council is unitary, you should have tried getting a council house here in leafy Lanchester, no matter how long you had lived here. Nor, I expect, would Housing Benefit have been able, or be able, to rent you anything privately in Lanchester. Again, no matter how long you have lived here.

The GLA is obviously far too large for the purpose (so is Durham County Council), but should housing in Inner London, at least, be handled at Borough level at all? Is it not time for an Inner London Housing Authority?

Braveheart

Last night's Newsnight has Tory MP Mark Field, who is quite relaxed about forcing people out (what Boris calls "cleansing"), and when asked if he expected a "migration out", he said "yes".

A lady called Theresa with 4 kids (2 in a very good local school) and a sick mother, who would have to move home and kids move school if her benefit was cut.

See here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vll94/Newsnight_27_10_2010/

It's quite straightforward, quite open and quite disgusting.

ollie

"It's quite straightforward, quite open and quite disgusting."

No. What IS disgusting are millions of workless - and workshy - people who soak up billions of pounds of benefits while the rest of us go to work and pay taxes.

As usual, the Left seem incapable of mature debate, just spouting shrill, knee-jerk hyperbole.

Forlornehope

Just check on property searches and you will find that there are plenty of quite decent four bedroom houses in London for £400 a week. However, if you go to £450 there are about 30% more. Room for a compromise here children?

Dimoto

Sorry, MARK Cannon.

TheE17Tory

As a London Conservative, I am seriously thinking about refusing to campaign for him if he keeps coming out with this crap for his own self advancement.

Braveheart

Ollie "millions of workless and workshy..."

Really? What's your source for that figure...

as there are under 3 million unemployed (for the moment) you would seem to be saying that anyone out of work is a worthless piece of shit....

And the 500,000 public service workers that George says with a griining sneer will lose their jobs because of his cuts, are they "workshy" now ( even although they are actually in work) or will they suddenly become "workshy" once he has cut their jobs...?

Still, it's always interesting when Tories say what they are thinking instead of trying to disgise it behind "fairness", like George'n'Dave. Thanks for that at least

davidk

Regarless of who meant what and what's being said now as opposed to this morning, the mood music has been created by design and by accident that housing benefit cuts = social cleansing.

James Forsyth was right to highlight Johnson's underscoring of the Labour argument.

Private Schultz

I'm with Mark Cannon - Paul Waugh knocks spots off James Forsyth on this story.

Benjit

Braveheart

What is disgusting about this policy? Why should those on benefits be insulated from the realities of life. If a working person has a cut in pay or has to move because of work, they too suffer disruption to their life. Their children have to move schools etc. Why should it be different for those on benefits?

As the saying goes "beggars can't be choosers".

Mrs Jackson

I am a bit puzzled over who are the 80,000 tenants who are going to move into London and take on the high rents when, we are told, the decrease in subsidies will force 80,000 lower paid Londoners out. It can't be young people, as they do not earn enough. Who then, can someone enlighten me?

Or maybe the rents will have to come down to affordable levels instead of being artificially inflated by housing allowances. Why are the opponents not acknowledging that as a possibility?

Liberty

Politicians regard tax income as theirs to play with, to indulge their political fantasies. The bare fact is that it is our money and we who are forced to pay it are often struggling to make ends meet ourselves so why should we pay 40 or 50 k so that people who do not work can live in nice places that we cannot afford? We accept that sometimes we cannot afford this or that so why should welfare recipients be exempt? That Johnson et al think that it all helps social mixing is all well and good but it has a cost and that cost is too much. Far better to seek social mixing some other way. Stopping the immigration of semi-literate peasants, paying teenagers to have babies and women to have more babies than they can afford or care for would be a good start.

Bocephus

On BBC London News last night the reporter pointed out that this rental cap only effects housing benefit recipients in the private rental sector and 80% of housing benefit recipients in the City of Westminster are in social housing. Which brings us back to why a working family earning £44000 pa should lose child benefit to pay for an unemployed family to live in the centre of London in a property the working family can only dream of living in.

TGF UKIP

Judging it by the World at One, the media and other politicians, including Grant Shapps, are interpreting it in the same way James Forsyth has done. Bojo the Clown can spin it as much as he likes, but the damage has been done.

I'm over 200 miles away but I can hear Livingstone laughing up here.

Rhoda Klapp

The housing benefit goes to the landlord, not the poor folks, whether feckless or..feckful(?). Remove the top end of the benefits, and there will be a shakeup in the market. Many landlords will be forced to lower their rents. The benefit was always a market-distorting subsidy. There will be no significant cleansing, or exodus. Although why anyone should have the right to reside where they like at my expense is not obvious to me. If they have been there so long they can't move away, the reason for that is not obvious either.

ollie

Braveheart, there are over eight million people in this country who don't work - and many of them deliberately so - obviously not all of them. It's naive to think everyone is busting a gut to find work.

It's a matter of priorities - and your priority, like most people on the Left, is making sure your core vote is protected - ie - the public sector and benefit recipients.

Labour simply do not have the courage to make tough decisions - 13 wasted years proved that conclusively.

Vulture

whatever Boris may be - and he is and more - at least he isn't in Brussels today selling out his country and breaking his election promises for absolutely nothing.
Tiberius says Dave has 'inner steel'. He may be correct.David Cameron is a sewer.

robert williams

As DavidK said

"James Forsyth was right to highlight Johnson's underscoring of the Labour argument"

& Boris by using that language is inevitably undermining the government & the BBC is like a dog with a bone.

alexsandr

this is simple. put a london weighting on the cap to say £430 (I made that number up but it is as good as any) for claimants within the north/south circular. Mabbe a few other over heated areas too...

justathought

I cannot understand Boris when he talks about HB recipients of taxpayers money as having "put down roots" in private (expensive) accommodation. Just how long has this sham been going on for?

The more the left wing media go on with the shroud waving the more it exposes the inequity to the average working family who have to live within their means.

I'm sure Boris is looking for votes but in confronting the PM he may be losing twice as many.

Woody

It's doesn't matter now who said what to whom because the BBC are running this as their main story and enjoying every minute of it.
BORIS JOHNSON IS A BLOODY FOOL AND SHOULD SHUT UP.

Edward McLaughlin

Socialist government gains power.

Insist that housing benefit must pay rent for those who need housing - anywhere in UK.

People can't believe it, nor can landlords. When they find it's true, they get together and fix a price. Think of a number.

Thousands jump on bandwagon. People housed, taxpayer stumps up, landlords make a killing.

Socialist government booted out.

New government give notice that party is over.

Left wing media resort to the use of phrases like 'ethnic cleansing'.

Nearly weekend again.

TGF UKIP

"The same level of inner steel as Dave", sorry Tiberius but just can't help myself storing that one away.

porkbelly

This is playing so neatly into Cameron's hands that one wonders if it is a set-up, or at a minimum DC is deliberately misinterpreting Boris in order to knock him down.

Fatbloke on tour

Just for the record as the HB spat starts to spin out of control ...

BJ = Shyster on the make.

The buffoonery is an act to distract the non political from his right wing mentalist views and his manipulative and predatory social habits.

TB / GB is small potatoes to the Dave vs BJ hatefest that is about to develop.

Finally who was the BBC interviewer, 50's throwback going by the level and depth of the questioning.

FF

The Coalition are absolutely correct on the arguments with caps on housing benefit. The consequence of the policy, though, is that families will be thrown out of their homes. That's an emotional thing. Dealing with Boris Johnson is the easy part.

Boudicca

S0d both Cameron and Boris. We need Douglas Carswell for PM.

Verity

Just looking at the accompanying photo ... God, what a pair of self-serving phonies. Boris at least has some wit, but he still comes across as louche.

David Bouvier

FF - If I can't afford my current housing I have to renegotiate or move. This is reality for most families in the UK. Sometimes it causes problems with travel, schooling, etc.

Just as the average family shouldn't be taxed to pay for housing better than they themselves could afford, why should benefit recipients be granted some protection from having to adapt to their circumstances - including moving to cheaper accomodation - when the average taxpaying family has no such protection.

How many families in London have moved to cheaper/further out accomodation each year?