CoffeeHousers' Wall, 7 July - 13 July

Diana

A few weeks ago I read hints of two possible by-elections in Scotland. Obviously Glasgow East has now come up..can you clear up what the other consitutency is, and why there might be a by-election there?

DM

Where does Health Minister Ben Bradshaw get the idea there is a 'gentlemen's agreement' in the medical profession for not taking on each other's cases?

Slim Jim

Am I alone in noticing Lord Darzi's remarks on the Andrew Marr show yesterday? When challenged by Marr about the inevitable bureaucracy that his proposals would produce, he replied, ''It's not bureaucracy, it's transparency.'' Well, that just about sums up the parallel universe that ZanuLab inhabits. Unfortunately, Marr didn't follow up with a question about the existing army of pen-pushers. Can't they be more 'efficient'? Perhaps this is another example of 'creating the truth'? Or simply side-swerving it?

Georgina

Can someone do a feature on the social engineering in the government’s housing policy?

Not content with shoving a percentage council – or “social” houses – on most new mass developments, which means that people who are struggling often to pay mortgages on their first home end up living next to people who aren’t paying a mortgage and so don’t have any incentive to look after their home, the collapse in the building programme (I am grateful to the credit crunch for that) has now seen the government put aside £200 million to buy up unsold new builds earmarked for private sale and to make them council houses. £200 million buys about 1,500 new council houses.

I raise the issue now because Vince Cable talked about it yesterday on Sky at about 10am on what would normally be Adam Boulton’s slot. He was advocating that even more taxpayers’ money be spent buying unsold flats and making them council homes. Why?

Who wins from this? The workshy, the idle, the benefit scroungers at the bottom and the fat cat building developers at the top.

Who’s kicked in the teeth? People like me struggling to even get on the housing ladder in the first place. People like me need house prices to fall.

But the struggling middle classes breaking their back to earn a wage and set themselves up in their first home don’t matter to the political elite like Vince Cable.

As far this buffoon is concerned I can just go on breaking my back to pay for someone else to live in a shiny new council home at the rent of a peppercorn and he and his City chums can keep their wonga.

Imagine finally getting your foot on the housing ladder for the first time in one of these new “mixed communities” estates and realising that you were paying through the nose to subsidise your neighbours in their council homes. And if you hold down a job and get caught in the credit crunch and can’t pay your mortgage… you won’t qualify for the cheap council housing some of your neighbours do.

The Press noticed this with the luxury £75 council flat in Poole, Dorset that others have mentioned on this website but it’s not a minor issue for those of us who are so maltreated at the bottom.

Thanks for sticking two fingers up at me yesterday, Vince Cable. Allow me to do the same to you.

Tim Carpenter

WASTE: We now have Gordon Brown trying to berate us for "waste" of £1bln, yet if Government spending increases were kept to inflation, we would be spending £200bln LESS each year.

£200bln buys alot - no Income Tax, no IHT, no Capital Gains Tax.

The hypocrisy of Gordon Brown is breathtaking.

SCHOOLS: The Head of the best state school protests about State-led social engineering in the classroom. It is about time the State stepped back from Education provision and a true system of vouchers, not the Conservative compromise, introduced. Schools pushing social engineering is another attempt at wedging the State between parent and child, individual and individual.

Tim Carpenter

Georgina, you have hit a nail squarely on the head.

Council housing has always distorted the housing market, along with the planning process and "regeneration projects" which only allow big developers to build in this country.

We need to break the cartel and enable individuals to compete on an equal footing to buy plots to build their own homes.

As for the forcing of "mixed developments" I have only one word to describe it: Communism.

George

Georgina - Absolutely Right!

My brother told me something similar - he was chatting to his landlord who explained to him that noone wants to buy up expensive apartments to rent anymore - not because of the credit crunch, but because of this scheme.

Who wants to spend upwards of £600 per month for an up-market apartment, only to find your neighbours are on benefits?

What happens to the aspirational society when the out of work can enjoy the same standard of living as those who work long and hard to get there?

Someone please make a big issue out of this travesty!

THX1138

It's the 7 July we should remember the 52 who died on the tube & bus three years ago this morning.

I drove through Tavistock Sq this morning & I remembered the anger & sorrow I felt & still feel.

I don't want to argue about it I just want to remember.

Verity

Georgina asks cui bono, and answers herself: "Who wins from this? The workshy, the idle, the benefit scroungers at the bottom and the fat cat building developers at the top."

That's only half the answer - and to the Labourites, the least important half. Who really benefits is the Labour Party, coasting along on tax taken off the productive sector of society, to provide bribes for the unproductive, uncontributing clump of voters. Will those millions keep on voting Labour? Obviously, yes, and you paid for their votes.

I have said many times that people on benefit should forego their vote until they are contributing members of society again. (Or for the first time ever, more likely.)

Except for OAPs, who must be presumed to have contributed to society for their whole lives, and the severely disabled who really cannot do any form of work, if you don't contribute, you shouldn't have the privilege of a vote. Not that they'd care. But Labour would.

Not that it will happen in a million years under socialist David Cameron. He will fall into the same trap of giving them more and more and more in the hopes of buying their votes. The only way to stop this vote-buying is to take these people out of the voting system until they're paying into it.

In the computer age, restoring people to the voters' registry - or taking them off - is just the click of a few keys away.

THX1138 - I hadn't realised that it was today and thank you for pointing it out to us.

Besides those 52 lives taken so nightmareishly and the cruel theft of their lives from their loved ones, we should also remember the hundreds who were maimed and will never run for the tube or a bus again. Those who lost limbs. Those who were blinded. Those who were cruelly disfigured. Thank you for reminding us.

Verity

Re the cartoon at the top of the page regarding London's congestion charge, I would pose one question: Who the hell cares?

leobadger

The RAF has just destroyed 260 tons of hashish and 2.5 tons of raw opium. The Treasury must be furious with the MOD for inflating the price of yet more staples. I’m sure this news will go down especially badly in Glasgow East. Dreadful timing.

Elizabeth

Georgina
I absolutely agree with you about the housing.
The prices need to come down. Best thing that could happen for most people.
If you are selling a house to buy another - lower prices are in effect for both properties so you don't lose anything. First time buyers gain.
However I would like to raise another gross inequity.
Some mortgages are better than others - as a lot of angry folk will discover if unemployment kicks in big time.
If you lose your job or become long term ill and you have a traditional mortgage - the benefit system will pay the interest on your mortgage - not necessarily the full amount - and you have to continue paying the principle yourself. Unless you have insurance it can be very very difficult.
If you have an islamic mortgage -as I understand it and correct me someone if I am wrong - you will get the entire amount paid out by the system.
With an islamic mortgage the bank pays for the house and rents it back to you until you have paid it off.
As with council house tenants - when they are unemployed their rents are fully claimable. So is the 'rent' on an islamic mortgage although it is a mortgage paying off a property.
So if things get really bad you are going to have the unjust system of council house tenants and islamic mortgage holders supported totally by benefits, but others with unislamic mortgages who will only be very partially able to claim and will almost certainly face repossession and homelessness.
Surely if a property is 'mortgaged' then the same level of benefit should be paid - but once again we see one law for our own and another for muslims and no government will to make the systems more equal or just..
I also think allocation of council housing is a disgrace.
Local people should be given priority, single mums should not automatically jump the list and get a house or flat purely by virtue of a pregnancy. They should be in hostels and made to go out to work with a system of collective childcare.
This would do more to stop unmarried motherhood than all the unused contraception handed out.
Young couples on low incomes should not be at the bottom of the heap because they choose responsible parenthood and council housing should not be sold off allowing tenants to make a 'killing'.
Where I live council houses sold for £1000-2000 can fetch over £300,000. Yet low paid workers cannot afford a roof over their heads and a huge proportion of the remnant of social housing goes to immigrants, druggies and released prisoners or single women.
Again there is another enormous advantage with an islamic mortgage.
Tenants who may like to buy a council house usually would need some deposit. No so if the bank just pays for the entire house. You are home and housed.
With such a mortgage you can 'buy' your council house - or any house and never pay a penny piece towards it. Just sit on your butt unemployed or sick and watch the taxpayer meet the payment in total. You can even work on the black economy too.
Lucky for some.

Tiberius

Mark Steyn:

Haven't see anyone cover this story yet.

What the 'roo court will do increase immigration into Canada!

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/1358/128/

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20080627_120859_5592

EyeSee

So Gordon's great wheeze to distract our attention also serves his favourite theme. The waste of food is to be deplored he says and who's fault is it? Ours, the great British public. The health service is a mess because of doctors, the economy bevause of the American public, the fuel due to our overuse, it goes on and on. But I think there is an even greater sub plot here and another typical Brown/New Labour one. If we can't control our food buying, then maybe he should tell us what to do. Draw up nutrition charts in conjunction with Tesco (ever noticed how chummy government is these days with big companies, just like the EU are?) and then force certain products on us. Soon you will not need an income, everything will be mapped out and with an appropriate government voucher. Brown isn't just stupid (proven, see the Treasury years) he's dangerous!

Tim Carpenter

HOUSING: I do believe that once someone is on benefits and is provided housing that is that - no increased payments, rooms, floors or anything. So, if you are living at home with parents, that is where you stay until you pay your way. If you are in a 1 bed flat and pop a sprog, the same, you stay there.

If, however, a family is bereaved and left unable to support themselves then a council house makes sense - the welfare state should be a safety net, not a hammock. However, once those kids grow up, they too must make their own way in the world.

Verity

Tiberius: "Mark Steyn:

"Haven't see anyone cover this story yet."

Just Melanie, Stephen Pollard and us on Coffee House. And it has been discussed at length in several magazines. LGF provided daily coverage.

Craig Strachan

Diana,

I believe the other possible Scottish by-election is Glenrothes.

Tiberius

I haven't see any comment on the 27 June decision, Verity. I've seen all that went before it.

James Forsyth

Diana, Sorry to sound so pompous but the reason no one is talking about the other by-election is that it will be caused by someone standing down because of severe ill-health.

Puncheon

I agree about the social housing business - it's just an incentive to act selfishly and irresponsibly, as well as a slap in the face for those working hard to get established in life.

Verity - I agree with you about the voting idea. In fact I would go further and say that anyone who earns most of their income from the public sector eg civil servants, should be denied a vote, otherwise they generally just vote for more money. I would also have a minimum age limit on MPs, say 30 years, and for Ministers, say 40, to prevent the kind of professional political class we see in today's Government.

Verity

Puncheon - I have posted on these pages - and elsewhere - on exactly what you suggest.

I have suggested that the unemployed, those living in housing paid for by others, and similar (except OAPs), PLUS the entire public sector, should not be accorded a vote.

It weighs the odds unfairly on the side of the non-producers at the cost of the producers.

It is a choice. If you want to go into the public sector and enjoy all the benefits, fine, but you cannot also enjoy a vote that determines how much more money you're going to get out of the system. This goes from MPs to teachers, nurses, doctors, traffic wardens, street football coordinators, real nappy outreach officers and so on.

Once, I would have excluded the police, but not now. I would, however, definitely exclude our fine armed forces. They should have a vote on who is going to send them to war.

Other than them, the entire public sector would be removed from the voters' rolls. And the entire benefits sector. If they are not contributing by creating wealth, there is no excuse for them having a say in how the wealth created by others is spent.

Elizabeth

To think it has come to this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist%2C-say-report.html

Verity

Y'all let it happen. No one's to blame but you.

Mind control of little children that goes against what the parents teach in the home.

Now the paedophiles infesting the British state school system have judged that little four-year olds "need" sex lessons. I believe the term is paedophilia, and am not astonished that the British taxpayer is paying for these people's jollies corrupting the innocence four-year old children for God's sake. That's what paedophiles do, isn't it, although usually in the back of sheds ... not in officially sanctioned classrooms?

Can you debase children any further than having officially sanctioned (and on the taxpayer payroll) perverts giving urgently needed sex lessons to four year olds against the wishes of their parents? Everyone involved in this programme should be arrested for paedophilia. And that includes a lot of peculiar women.

Elizabeth

So closet Catholic Tony Blair, although many warned at the time, appointed Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury.
That it is the destruction of the Church of England is beyond doubt.
I wonder what honour the papacy will bestow.
As for the CofE. I find its new attitude and clergy not only off putting but positively repulsive.
Far from sending me to Rome it sends me to the creeds that produced the great Cromwell.
I can commune with my God in my own home very well, I don't need some person of questionable sex to assist me.
Mark my words the pews will empty ever faster - in the CofE. Catholics and Muslims will rule supreme.
Didn't Tony do well, on both fronts.

Verity

On this, I agree with you, Elizabeth. Tony Blair has the most malignant face. The first time I saw him on TV, I intuited that he was going to wreak evil and destruction on British society. What he accomplished in ten short years beggars belief. The destruction of our legal system, the destruction of our Bill of Rights, destruction of education and the destruction of our national church.

He is now slithering around the world reaping his rewards for being such a fine commander in the Gramscian cause. He is too stupid to have done any of this alone - but that was OK; they wanted someone stupid with a grotesquely inflated ego. They certainly chose the right man.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius - OSBORNE, or as perhaps we'd better call him from now on Greedy Gideon (GG)

You asked me to post over here just what was my "latest problem" with GG and frankly I am most disappointed that you should feel any explanation was required. While I have long since given up really expecting any objectivity on Dave and GG from the besotted hacks who write this fanzine, I really do expect better from you.

But let's get down to cases and can we accept that as Andrew Neil is clearly the principal witness, the account of the issue in the Mandrake column on p8 of yesterday's DT is an accurate one?

If that is accepted then the whole matter is quite straight forward - GG goes to Jersey, speaks to the IOD almost exclusively about tax, spend and business policies (evidence of event monitor Andrew Neil) and then collects a fee of some thousands in direct contravention of Conservative Party rules that state that Shadow Ministers should not charge for speaking engagements "if the subject matter relates directly to your ministerial responsibilities." Quite so, to extract or accept money from a special interest group in your normal course of duty is to put you in an invidious position.

Now at this point you might think open and shut, and any normal person being so caught out would hold their hands up, say bang to rights and mumble on about misunderstandings. Not this greedy, arrogant little sod though and here's where it does get better!

GG, according to "an aide" is apparently in the clear because while the subject of the economy "cropped up" it was not the main point of discussion. Which then of course begs the question "so what was was?"

Just why had GG flown to Jersey and collected a fee of thousands? Was it, perhaps, to give his expert, informed take on the return of the dado or floral pattern versus stripes in the larger room. If it wasn't for this, nor for views on the economy it really is difficult to see what other areas of expertise the IOD of Jersey might have considered GG to have (Tatton Rangers' chances in the Cheshire Cup?)

Now at this point the essence of the matter, Tiberius, is who do you believe Andrew Neil or GG and his "aide." I will of course take your answer for granted.

However, I would suggest that it is not really the case itself which is so important or relevant. It is the multiple contexts into which it must be placed.

1) The whole issue of Tory sleaze emerging again, Conway, MEPs, Wintertons etc and Dave's much trumpeted promise to stamp it out. A highly selective promise it would seem.

2) This Osborne affair comes just two weeks after Spelman was fingered for stealing taxpayers' money to pay her nanny - and please don't give me the ten years crap - 10 days, 10 weeks 10 years it was still nicking and she was lying - see the magisterial Guido.

3) Dave goes to Glasgow to deliver his homily on morality. As could be expected though, Dave's is a highly selective, class based morality - fat, fag smoking, disability welfare scroungers bad, Spelman and GG no problem.

4) Mercer, Hastilow and McGrath all commit the mortal sin of failing to adhere to the Cameron code of puntilious political correctness and are instantly cast out into the exterior darkness. The sins of Spelman and GG on the other hand are matters of mere venality and of such little consequence that they must remain upstanding members of the parish and at the right hand of the Heir to the Vicar Blair.

Now given that GG has previous form on such matters - his partial disclosure of £500k some months back - I am sure some Labour people or more objective hacks than the Speccie's are going to have some fun with all this but, Tiberius, wouldn't it be nice, for once, if some prominent pillar of rectitude in the Tory Party were to step forward and say "This Stinks and what it stinks of most of all is the old Tory hypocrisy which has caused our Party so much damage in the past"

Elizabeth

Shameroon and morality made me nearly as sick as Broon and his veggies.
How can anyone!!!! look at Osbourne and see a Chancellor in waiting.
No wonder the Tory vote is being described as 'soft'.
They are only riding high because everyone is sick through and through with Labour.

Elizabeth

PS Verity

My late Mother was firmly convinced that Blair was the anti-christ to the day she died and she wasn't silly either.
Was it coincidence or intuition that had the Tory advertising campaign showing Blair with the 'devil eyes', remember that?.
Shameron claimed himself!! to be 'heir to Blair'. Who am I to question him. He should know. One honest thing he has actually said.

Tiberius

You'll excuse me if I wait for corroboration of your case for the prosecution against Gids, TGF (I can't access the Mandrake article because the DT online search options are next to useless).

The jury is out on Spelman (as it was over IDS and it then cleared him). The other miscreants were either "convicted" or went beyond the boundaries of policy (as opposed to personal conduct).

The only thing I would say at this stage is that if Osborne had so much a stepped on a pelican crossing when the red man was showing, someone at the BBC would have been there to film it.

Tim Carpenter

Cameron's "self responsibility" is, AFIACT, a sham. It is Authoritarianism and Social Conservatism wrapped in a faux-libertarian gauze.

He patronisingly talks of people getting self-responsibility, but in truth when you read what is being said, he is actually talking about being beholden to to the State who will decide who can and cannot enjoy said freedoms. That is not the way. As with School Vouchers, the Tories are still control-freaks and still feel that the State is there to husband the infantilised herd.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius do I smell a cop out from facing up to what your beloved Dave and GG really are?

Craig Strachan

James Forstyh wrote in another topic:

"One of the most frequent conversations that Fraser and I have is about whether politicians can change the moral weather. Fraser thinks they can’t, I think they can."

I'd like to see you two argue that out as a Coffee House special feature!

Verity

God, without Pete, this blog moves with the speed and consistency of molasses sludging down a slight incline in winter.

Boring.

leobadger

Wonderful bit of satire from Oliver Pritchett in today's Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/07/09/do0907.xml

Tony

Paul Mason on Newsnight last night said we can expect the government to start buying up lots more unsold flats for "social" use.

This rewards developers, rewards welfare spongers and punishes the working people, many of whom are now struggling, paying through the nose for both those groups.

Why aren't the press crucifying Brown over this?

Tiberius

"Tiberius do I smell a cop out from facing up to what your beloved Dave and GG really are?"

So what are they really like? Do tell.

Elizabeth

Where is the global warming - it seems to have passed Hertfordshire by.....?
The coming mini ice age seems far more probable from here.

Verity

Oi, you! Harpic Harridan! Oi, you! Jack Straw! Oi, you, Gordon Brown! Oi, you, all you capitulators to "diversity" and "multiculturalism" - read this, slimeballs:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30582_Relatives_of_July_7_Suicide_Bomber_Have_a_Party/comments/#ctop

TGF UKIP

Now, now Tiberius, no more Harperson tactics if you please.

If the DT's online shortcomings preclude your assembling sufficient material for the defence of GG (and good luck with that matey) on this occasion, then you'll just have to take mine, and Andrew Neil's word, that this episode really does reveal GG for the nasty little money grubber he obviously is.

Taking it one step further, though, while even I can accept that there is something you can see in Cameron, I really am at a loss to understand what you can possibly find to defend in this specimen.

I would certainly be prepared to bet a lot of money that in any set of nominations across all the political blogsites for the top ten tossers from the three front benches GG would feature in them all and I'd have a separate side bet that he would be in the overall top five.

C'mon, Tiberius, as an accountant and FD, not only would you be more qualified than GG but you would certainly know how to behave better.

THX1138

TGF Sorry to change the subject but a few weeks ago we were having a
go back & forth about something, Obama maybe it gets to be a bit of blur to be honest. Anyway you mentioned a good book by some bloke from Mossad,can you remind me.

I'm on the back straight of Obama's book The Audacity of Hope very good I must say & even funny I laughed out loud twice & I need something for the hol's pronto

THX1138

Elizabeth The clues in the global part of name global warming it's not Hertfordshire warming.

Sorry I know you were joking but all this rain is getting me down .

Your Flamboyant Carbon Footprint Host for The Evening

Number Plate, all you have to remember, stressed by rain or not, is, global warming and cooling takes place at the pleasure of the sun and the activity on its surface. Mr and Mrs Concerned are not even flea eggs in the universal scheme.

THX1138

Thanks but I'll take the advice of all the experts in the field rather than a blogger with an even more stupid name than mine if it's all the same with you.

Lets hope the sun comes out I'm sure that's something we can all agree on.

The Happy Carbon Footprint

Number Plate - But the most respected geogloglical scientists say that the hundreds of millions of years of the slow climate changes on the earth's surface are from activity on the surface of the sun.

The ones on the "climate change" (such an absurd, juvenile term! The climate never stops changing! The surface of the sun is never still!) bandwagon (I hope it's windmill driven) are the second rankers. And the third rankers. They are in it for the publicity, the chance to get their faces on TV, get invited to free dinners and lunches and junkets and get books and papers published to advance their career. Speak to journalists. Raise their pallid profiles.

FYI, the climate on Mars just now is slowly changing - and we are talking about percentages of a degree here - at the same pace as us on Earth. (Thank God they found ice on Mars! At least the little green men can cool down with a sundowner!)

Question: How long do you think it took for all the dinosaurs and dense tropical jungles to die out in what are now desert regions? And turn into oil?

A. Around 10 years? B. Several months? C. 20m years?

Give me a break!

Elizabeth

THX
Nothing is warming - in fact there is massive evidence we are getting colder and fast.
Hertfordshire may not show global 'warming' but it is reflecting the global cooling - take my word.
Apparently the global temperature has dropped .7 of a degree in a year. Unprecedented.
All the warming of the past 80 years has been wiped out at a stroke.
The ice sheets are thickening, glaciers growing and I am chilly in mid July which selfish as I am matters quite a lot to me.
And there are no sunspots. Just as there were no sunspots in the last cold period of a few hundred years ago, when the Thames froze over and the ground remained frozen for months on end and food was short and people (undoubtedly pensioners) died of cold and starvation.
God help us with the energy prices. Just when I was getting rather enthusiastic at the thought of Mediterranean temps in my back garden, hell (this country can almost be described as hell I think) freezes over and my energy bill comes from the same place - or seems to.
Dire.

TGF UKIP

THX, I remember referring to the book "Man in the Shadows" by Efraim Halevy, former Mossad Director. It has taken me a few minutes, though, to recall the context.

It was cited in our pro and con debate on Iraq which was probably no more than three months ago but seems more like three years. Doesn't tempus fugit when you're having fun?!

TGF UKIP

THX, PS, a recommendation if you haven't already read it. It's not contemporary but a brilliant read, a book I've read several times and always hate getting to the end of.

The title and sub-title are "The Wise Men -Six Friends and the World They Made" by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas. The six men are Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, Charles Bohlen, George Kennan, Robert Lovett and John McCloy.

The "World They Made" was basically the post war world and American foreign and security policy for the second half of the twentieth century. They were right at the heart of matters in the maelstrom period 1945-50 - foundation of UN, Nuclear Policy, Containment Doctrine, Israel, NATO, Iron Curtain, Marshall Plan, W. Germany and modern Japan and the Korean War.

A facinating account of the interplay of men and personal relationships on policy.

It was published in 1986 and you can probably now get it for coppers on Amazon. As you may probably have gathered, my favourite non-fiction book.

THX1138

The Happy Carbon Footprint & Elizabeth I refer you to my earlier post

THX1138

Thanks TGF will be on Amazon buying them both today. Yep your right it was about Iran & the rights & wrongs of talking to them a I recall. Looks like with Obama a shoo-in we are going to find out if a bit of jaw jaw works with the nutters.

THX1138

TGF I will read "The Wise Men -Six Friends and the World They Made" sounds fascinating reading. As I was sitting in West End traffic I mulling over you book suggestions & following on from the wonderful BBC series mad men. I thought that maybe the ad men of post war Madison Ave had done more than policy makers & diplomats to shape the world we live in now?

Second hand books have got so cheap on Amazon I bought Carl Sagan's wonderful book cosmos for 1p last week. How do they make any money?

Cogito Ergosum

Tamzin, Tamzin, wherefore art thou Tamzin?

Hast thou resigned to spend more time with Sesame?