Housing Strategy - Solving The Housing Problem

I don’t think that there is anyone on the UK who isn’t aware of the seriousness of the housing crisis we are currently experiencing.

There seems to me to be four main areas needing attention being:

1. Social housing
2. Shortage of new affordable homes to buy
3. Getting young people onto the housing ladder

4. Homelessness

I don’t think that there is any reason why we cant tackle all of these issues in one go and with zero cost to the tax payer.
This idea started life as quite a complex solution some 6 months ago but over time, through development has simplified substantially.  

It is now entirely possible to give young people the instant access they need to the housing market with the ability to purchase property in virtually any location they desire. This will inspire the existing house builders to design and build excellent quality, genuinely affordable homes, freeing up valuable land and which returns a substantial profit for the tax payer. A profit so great that it alone could start to address the repayment of the national debt.

The way to achieve this is by truly radical thought and completely change the very basic principals of our housing market functions.

I am a strong believer that tax payers money should be invested to create the finances needed to fund the tax payers needs. And this is where it begins. The tax payer becomes a provider of interest only mortgages, with capital repayment becomming a matter of choice. I had toyed with the idea of long term standard mortgages, but these are not protected from market fluctuation so are inherently unstable. The mortgages provided buy the tax payer are free from market interferrence and as such the interest rate can be secured for the lifetime of the mortgage.

By providing interest only mortgages it enables all people to get onto the housing ladder, this includes the unemployed as the interest they pay on the mortgage will be substantially lower than the rent they pay a private landlord for the same property. This will give the unemployed and employed substantially more disposable income or they could choose to have less disposable income and opt for a better quality home. 

As the tax payer is providing mortgages as opposed to social housing, people will have the freedom to purchase the home they can afford in the area they can afford which will end the existence of council and social housing estates. Virtually every home will be privately owned. People will not be forced to make repayments to their capital which means that a mortgage can last a lifetime. But if they find themselves with a change of circumstance they can make the minimum interest payment meaning that they will never face the prospect of losing gheir home. Christmas and holidays will never be a thing to fear for lack of affordability. And time off to educate oneself is a choice and no longer an obstacle.

Lets say for example a home with a purchase price of £250,000 over a 25 year period at 3% interest. The initial repayments would be in the region of £1458 pcm. However on interest only at 3% this cost reduces to £625 pcm. The property becomes eminently more affordable and as the owners career develops and their salary grows, so the capital repayment increase. In 40 years, £250000 may become a trivial amount, much like the mortgage payments appear of people who purchased their homes 25 years ago.

If no capital is paid off then after say 50 years it will have made the tax payer a return of £375,000 and the tax payer still owns the 100% of the property.

If we invested £500b in mortgage provision, then every 50 years at 3% the tax payer would still own the £500bn investment and will have made £750bn in interest payments and the tax payer still owns the initial investment of £500bn, which quite possibly will have appreciated in value.

Double this investment to 1tn and in 50 years the national debt is paid. Double it again and the debt is paid in 25 years. Taxpayers money is no longer needed to pay the debt.

With a mortgage based on £100,000 the interest at 3% is £250 pcm. At 2% it is £166 pcm. 

With the extra disposable income being spent, new opportunities will naturally present themselves encouraging a growing and prosperous economy. 

Ode to Corbyn

Life Under Corbyn

If our next Prime Minister’s Corbyn,
A wise and weathered man,
Unlike the reform party,
Mr Corbyn has a plan.

He’ll build decent social housing,
An end to bad landlords, at last,
The damp we have to suffer,
Will become a thing of the past.

He’ll renationalise our industries,
And our household bills will drop,
Neoliberal profiteering,
Under Corbyn, it will stop.

A million jobs created,
Decent terms and conditions for all,
End of tory zero hours contracts,
We’ll all stand proud and tall.

Our services are in crisis,
But migration isn’t to blame,
It’s decades of underfunding,
And that sadly, will never change.

Immigrants will be welcomed here,
To live and work and play,
Well revigorise the migrant impact fund,
We’ll be happy for them to stay.

Now Corbyn, he’s a brave old soul,
But he doesn’t want a war,
To kill innocent people for money,
That, we should all abhor.

The banks who caused the crisis,
Will be reigned in, just you see,
And those tax avoiding leeches,
Will learn sharing and not greed.

We are a land of true compassion,
We love and care, not hate,
This is what it means to be British,
This is what makes Britain ‘Great’.

So Corbyn is very electable,
Don’t put you faith in the press,
For all they have to offer is,
Their vested interest.

The press is owned by billionaires,
And taxes they don’t pay,
Which is why they denounce Corbyn,
To stop him making change.

This life could be reality,
Vote any one else is a sin,
So next you visit the ballot box,
Ensure you vote for Corbyn.

How To Repair an Irrepparably Split Political Party

I wrote this story about 35 years ago on my Commodore64, neither its USB or HDMI connections were functioning but I managed to Bluetooth it directly to my tablet.

Today It seems almost profetic but as you know, having been written so long ago, it couldn't possibly have been based on any recent events.

                                                             Setting The Scene

Imagine if you will, a political party split on whether to go to war or not, a split that runs so deep, that it threatens the very existence of the party. The leader of that party only has a few merry men and women standing firmly behind her, but to her advantage she holds the support, of the majority of the membership. The remainder of the party leadership are pro-war and vastly outnumber the leader, but their membership following is far smaller. Neither side is willing to give any quarter.

So, the pro war faction decide to stage a coup to oust the anti war leader. And to lend weight to their treachery, they devise a plan to assissinate her, not with weapons, no, but with words. They were not brave enough to use weapons, because they thought that they might get into trouble. So they called her names and made shit up.

The pro war side had a terrible weapon in their arsenal, for they held power over the selection process for new candidates and undemocratically, they have selected all of their own candidates for election. Meaning that, even though the vast majority of members support the anti-war agenda, they will never get to see any of their preferred candidates selected, which they felt was very, very unfair.

To make matters worse, every time one of the pro war candidates lost, they tried to put all of the blame on the shoulders of anti-war candidate, but her supporters were having none of it.

Both sides stake claim to having the support of the wider electorate, but neither can prove their claims because they are based on heresay, doorstep gossip. Their refusal to put this question to the electorate meant that the answer to this question will never be discovered.

                               The situation seemed hopeless, stalemate, or was it?

Whilst both sides of the party had reached an impasse, a small group of 500 of the most faithful and loyal members had had enough and decided to do the unthinkable, they resigned their membership of the party and created a new party so they could carry on with their anti-war beliefs without hinderance.

Eventually, the time to start campaigning for the long awaited general election arrived, the pro war faction of the party fielded all of their own candidates and were ready for battle. The anti war majority, predicted to have done well in the elections, had no-one standing. 

On the day of the election the candidates were announced, the 500 loyal anti-war members who resigned from the party, re-emerge as independent candidates. Well funded by a number of wealthy benefactors, foreign governments, we'll never know but they have a clear purpose in mind, to stand against everyone except, the anti-war members from their old party.
The campaigns came went and were surprisingly strong for the independents, no-one expected it.

When election day finally arrived, slowly over the course of the night, the results came in......
1st place 250 seats - The pro war party.
2nd place 180 seats - The anti war party.
3rd place 120 seats - The Independents
Everyone else won 50 seats between them.

The massive loss of seats cost the anti-war party dearly in the election and the pro-war party of division, hate and poverty were duly elected.

                                                                   The Fallout

On day one of the new government there was nervousness in the air, no victory celebration from the pro-war party and the entire country were glued to their TV sets, waiting for the announcement that they had long suspected was coming.

The news reader came on....

"We are hearing reports of mass defections from the independents to the Anti-war party, we will keep you posted with developments".

By early evening, the news anchor came back on the TV, the atmosphere in the country was charged with excitment and anticipation, could it really happen? could it be true? because everyone knew what had just happened, they just wanted it confirmed.

"Well its been an extraordinary day in politics, a day that shall be long remembered. The final counts are in and we understand that all, I shall repeat that, all of the independents who won their seats have now all defected to the anti-war party, We are unclear what this means exactly, but it does appear that the main opposition to the government actually hold more seats in parliament than the elected government itself. Ladies and gentlemen, on their first day in office, the elected government has been rendered a 'lame duck'. Quite extraordinary."

On day one, all of the winning independents defected to the anti-war party who, for the first time in years, are now unified in their anti-war majority, massively strengthening the leaders position. Their resignation wasn't an act of desperation but a calculated act to illicit a specific outcome. Some called it unfair but the fact remained that defections were well within the rules.

The benefactors and the public were well aware and supportive of their agenda but no-one believed it could happen, for they knew that these independents had no intention of remaining as independent. On day one of the new parliament all of those who won, defect back to their old party to rejoin the leader in her anti-war stance. Sadly, because of the unavoidability of this action, the party lost this election by 130 seats and handed the victory to the party of division, hate and poverty. But, 180 of the faithfull 500 won their seats and immediately defected.

This now resulted in the unprecedented, extraordinary situation where the opposition party had lost the election, but had more representatives in parliament than the government, thereby rendering them a lame duck government, with no power to enact any of their dreadful, punishing laws. It was only a matter of time until the government in waiting, the anti-war party, seized power.

The End         

State Pension Strategy - Giving people the right to retire at a time of their choosing

State Pension Equality Strategy
It is clear that there exists an imbalance of equality with the State Pension.
This suggestion will aim to eradicate the gender inequality inherent within the state pension retirement ages, and also provide the flexibility for people to retire on a state pension at a time of their choosing and not that of the governments.
Another advantage of this policy idea is that, as more people will have the opportunity to take retirement earlier, then presumably, an equal amount to jobs will become available in the jobs markets. This will also be of significant advantage to British business as those retiring have usually reached the top of their pay scales and will be replaced by people entering employment at the bottom, which could make significant savings for businesses, which in turn could be used to invest in workforce education.
The government pension scheme will operate in a similar way to Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) in that, if you are lucky enough to be able to afford to retire earlier, you will take a slightly reduced pension. This would enable those who have saved for retirement to be able to afford to retire earlier, and those that haven’t, may have to work longer, but once arriving at their chosen retirement age, will receive a larger weekly pension.
The scheme would apply to all people equally irrespective of gender.
Here are some numbers based on a life expectancy of 80 years of age and a maximum state pension of £120 per week. These figures are just for illustration.
If we base the pension on a weekly income of £120 per week for someone retiring at 65 and with a 15 year life expectancy, they would have a total pension pot of £93,600 based over a 15 year period. So their weekly pension would be £120pw.
However, someone retiring at 60 with a 20 year life expectancy would receive the same pension pot of £93,600, but their pension is based on being in receipt of it for 5 years longer, they would receive a weekly pension of £90pw. Over a 20 year period or average life expectancy, the pensions would achieve parity whilst giving people the flexibility to retire at a time of their choosing.
The calculations of pension are easily adjusted to compensate for changes in life expectancy and age of retirement. Pension can be calculated to be taken at any time throughout the year providing the opportunity to take retirement on any day of ones choosing between the ages of 60 and the day one chooses to retire.