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. 

Only Labour Will Effectively Tackle UK Immigration

In my opinion....
The number one issue with people have with brexit is to secure the greatest reduction of immigrants entering the UK.
There is a feeling that the person best placed to deliver this is Theresa May. Jeremy Corbyn does not have a policy per se in name, but I don't think this means he doesn't have one.
In fact I think that the person most likely to deliver the greatest reduction in migrants is Jeremy Corbyn.
The first thing we have to realise is that migrants come here to work, some in our essential services which we all agree we need and those that come here that are exploited.
These migrants find it easy to find work in 'off the grid' jobs and are happy to accept pay that is far below the British minimum wage. These jobs are supplied in their 100's of thousands by British businesses and undercut the salaries of our native workers.
They haven't taken our jobs, these employers didn't create these jobs with local people in mind.
So the problem isn't directly an immigration problem but a problem with british employers.
So the solution to the immigration problem we have isn't to close the door on immigrants but to shut down the opportunity for unscrupulous employers to exploit their labour.
Jeremy Corbyn had already got this policy embedded into the Labour manifesto.
The £10 minimum wage.
By removing the ability for employers to exploit migrant workers, you also remove their motivation to view the UK as an opportunity for work. Employers will all have to pay enforced minimum salaries, which will force employers away from using cheap, migrant labour and the focus will naturally result in British jobs for British people.
The reduced opportunity for migrant workers can only bring about a massive reduction in the numbers of overseas low skilled workers seeking employment in the UK. This would also apply to refugees who would be welcome here as a place of safety but find that the opportunity to settle is much harder.
So it matters little if we retain 'free movement' because we will have removed the opportunity for migrants to find employment unless they are the high skilled professionals we need.
By not closing our borders we also have a far greater chance of accessing the single market tariff free and get the best Brexit deal with the EU.

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         

The Death of Neoliberalism - Part 2

One can't help but notice that there has been some political shenanigans going on of late.
Tory, Labour or Ukip? The posturing, the argument, it has all been great fun and yes, maybe a little boisterous. But what is it that is actually at stake here? What battle is really being fought here?

The fight isn’t just between political parties this time, its for a change in the economic model. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher introduced a new kind of economic model to the people of Britain, the economics of neoliberalism. It is this very economic model that ‘leaves people behind’. In 1997, when Tony Blair became prime minister, he rejected socialism and adopted neoliberalism as his favoured economic model. So the labour party were no longer socialists but had become neoliberals. Every election since then, irrespective of a tory or labour win at the ballot box, neo-liberalism in one form or another, always won and for almost 40 years, those left behind have struggled to survive. Forgotten by both the Tories and New Labour, it isn’t difficult to understand the distrust in the political establishment.

There is an easy way to separate neo-liberalism from socialism. Neoliberals want the wealth and power of the people handed over to the private sector, our NHS, railways, utility companies. Its a kind of ‘corporate communism’ which has been evolving for decades where business as opposed to the state own everything, but its still basically communism.
Socialism wants wealth and power handed over to the people so as everyone benefits, not contracted out to the private sector, where profits are kept as personal wealth in private bank accounts, instead of being re-invested into our services.
This is the real battle that is going on, the fight to wrestle the wealth and power once rightfully owned by the British people and taken piece by valuable piece, by successive neoliberal governments, to hand back to the British people so as they alone, not corporations, will be the architects or their own future.

As there are neoliberals and socialists within the Labour party, this also explains why the party is split. This isn’t a battle over a weak leader, but a battle for the very soul of the Labour Party, is the Labour Party neoliberal or socialist? When the Labour Party fielded a true socialist candidate for leader of the Labour Party in 2015, socialists around the country woke up and flocked to the party. Now the membership is made up primarily of true socialists. This is also why the Labour Party cannot depose Corbyn, because he has the overwhelming backing of, the membership. All the neoliberal element of the Labour Party can hope to achieve is to erode the membership support for Corbyn enough to launch yet another leadership challenge. It seems that the job of the socialist Labour members is to stay united, stay strong and stay members. The main danger for the Socialist labour party is that as time goes on, the membership who joined to support Corbyn as leader may feel their job is finished. Lapsing membership is one of the great threats to Corbyns leadership, especially if they are not allowed vote in leadership elections, without being party members for 6 months.

These same splits are evident, within the tory party who have their own internal (but suppressed from public view) battles between capitalism and neoliberalism, but you’d be lucky to find it documented though. Ken Clarke though strikes a lonely figure as one of the last remnants of a true tory conservative.

As for the future, neoliberalism has almost finished draining the last drop of capitalism from the Tory party. With capitalism being a close cousin of neoliberalism, it wasn’t too difficult for capitalism to be overwhelmed and subdued. The return of Socialism to the Labour Party has created a powerful defence against neoliberalism, and over the next 3 years, those defences will be continually tested for weaknesses. The weapons deployed by neoliberals run along the lines of leadership challenges, false accusations (trot infiltrations, unelectable etc) demonising the membership and of course, fake news which is happily delivered by the main stream media in the hope that they can create enough lethargy to divide Corbyns support base.
It seems to me that the battle for the next general election isn’t in 2020, its now. Neoliberalism does not want to face socialism in a fair fight, it would much rather face itself as it has done for he last 38 years. Neoliberal tory, or neoliberal Labour, it matters little. But neoliberal versus Socialism? that is a battle that neoliberalism knows that it can't win and therefore has to kill off socialism before the next general election.   

While neoliberalism has just elected its first president in the States, in the UK neoliberalism is in retreat and fighting for its very survival. If socialism wins in 2020, neoliberalism in the UK will be forced back into obscurity and the Tories will have to create more left leaning policies in order to just survive.
All 'socialism' has to do to win, is stay united, stay strong and retain the membership.

Why Hasn't Owen Smith Conceded Defeat?

With such dire support from the membership, why hasn't Owen Smith and the 172 members of the PLP conceded defeat. Why is it that they continue to stigmatise those members of the labour party who have given their support to Jeremy Corbyn? Surely they understand that these actions are only creating more division within the party and making Mr Corbyn all the stronger. What could they possibly have to gain?

What seems crystal clear to me, is that following all of the accusations of entryism and the Trotsky, Nazi name calling the Owen camp is creating the conditions whereby reunification of the Labour Party is impossible. How can a Corbynite work alongside a colleague who considers them a Nazi Stormtrooper? Why is the Owen Camp still campaigning for support to the membership?

The answer, is that they arent talking to the membership, they are talking to the electorate, why? because they are preparing the ground to split the Labour Party.

The electorate by and large are generally not active members. They will get their information from the press which we know has shown extreme bias against the Corbyn camp. From this they will form their opinions. Corbyn has very little press and has effectively been silenced from the main stream media. Someone said to me the other day "Corbyn, he only comes out for leadership elections".

So we have two things happening here:

1. Membership increasing in unprescedented numbers showing the depth of public support for Jeremy Corbyn.

2. The PLP trying to frighten the electorate into believing that our beloved Labour party is being infiltrated by Nazis.

One possible outcome of this, is whilst support for Jeremy Corbyn grows, support from the wider electorate diminishes. The Labour party splits as is the plan and the splinter group hope to gain the support of the wider electorate. Project 'Trotsky, Nazi, Communist' fear continues in earnest. The Owen camp have accused the Corbyn supporters of living in a 'bubble' which we are not. But their campaign is certainly attempting to seal us into one.

The Death of Neo Liberalism

Have you ever wondered why there is so much negativity and hatred towards the left these days? The thing that has struck me so powerfully is the unprecedented level that the vitriol has reached. Why?

For too long the labour party has been edging ever closer to the right, which has kept capitalism as an economic plan, thriving. But the problem with capitalism is that it is an insatiable beast which will ultimately run out of the 'assets' on which it needs to feed. The last great store of wealth in the UK are the assets owned by the tax payer. Under the Conservatives neo-liberal economy, many of the assets we owned, the utility companies, railways and royal mail have already succumbed and we now bear witness to the 'fire sale' of the most profitable sections of oir last publicly funded assets. The police service, the NHS suffering increased costs to run and a degraded service to the public because sections of them are disappearing fast into private sector ownership. All of which provides woefull value for the tax payer. Social housing is an excellent example of dreadful value for the tax payer, we are now in the ridiculous position where it would be cheaper to buy the unemployed a home, than to rent one for them. Instead of the tax payer building an asset portfolio of hundreds of thousands of good quality homes, our taxes are wasted on private landlords, with no prospect of a return on the taxes we pay. This is what neo-liberalism is, it believes that all assets should be owned privately, not by governments. They achieve this by getting business friendly politicians into power. Once there, they can then start stripping the people of their assets until the tax payer has has nothing left. Most people know this as privatisation.

The new threat from the left for once, isn't just rhetoric, there lies behind it a very real plan. Jeremy Corbyn will create the structure for it, but it is ordinary people like you and me, who will benefit from it by building the infrastructure. Capitalism has effectively strangled creativity and entrepeneurialism, it has made it very hard for new innovations to be realised. Jeremy Corbyns policies will set this creativity free to impact on our lives in a million different ways. Technologies will be created to challenge and surpass existing industry, where decent pay and working conditions will become a standard. What will be created is truly 'trickle up' economics. It could even prove to be a 'tsunami up' economy. An economy that provides wealth for everyone, not driven and reliant on markets or shareholders. An economy of inherent strength, that has no need to slash thousands of jobs because of a dip in profit. And the thing that is petrifying the neo liberal conservatives the most is, that we now know how to do it.

It was John McDonald who inspired these thoughts, who in response to the Queens speech said:

"Labour rejects the failed and cruel austerity programme adopted by this government. Instead, working in partnership with businesses, entrepreneurs and workers, Labour would create an entrepreneurial state to support innovation, create wealth and drive growth. And we would share the proceeds of that growth fairly.

By investing in our economy Labour would lay the foundations of a new society that is radically fairer, more equal and more democratic. An alternative based upon a prosperous economy which is economically sound, environmentally sustainable and where that prosperity is shared by all"

I do not know if I'm using the right terminology, but I've called this 'Social Capitalism', maybe its just socialism. Where business is a tool used for the betterment of everyone, not for the enrichment of individuals. Within this society there would be no room for tax avoiders,  their existance wouldn't be tolerated. Reclaiming taxes would be much less of a problem than it is today, because a corporations survival would depend on it. It's not opposed to people building personal wealth, so there is a place for true, honest capitalism, which takes people with it, instead of leaving them behind. Corbyns policies are inclusive enough to appeal to many on the right, however, the days of the tax payer funded money tree will be consigned to history.

If this is Corbyns plan, then it is not surprising that there is so much opposition to him, so much desperate need to rid government of him because Corbyns vision is the only solution to reversing inequality and provide a fair economy for the benefit of everyone. There is so much creativity, innovation and entrepeneurialism just waiting to burst through that would be prevented from doing so, under our traditional parties. This is a vision that can does not depend on EU membership of, but all the more important to realise now that we are 'out'.

To allow the right to win now would be to deny the British people the opportunity to enjoy a country of social and economic justice.

I think therefore, going back to my opening paragraph, the manifestation of hatred and vitriol against the left can only be explained as the manifestation of fear, and judging by its levels, it must be rife within the neo-liberal community. A fear not only that neo-liberalism is in its death throws, but that there is something very real emerging, to seal its fate. The dream, that generations of people have been fighting for in social and economic justice is within touching distance and for the first time, we will no longer have to settle for scraps from the masters table. This time it's different, it feels real, this time its not rhetoric, this time we really do know how to achieve it. This is why, the bile that has been spewed by the main stream media about Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters has achieved nothing except for the opposite it was intended to. This time we have the vision, we have the talent, we have the support and most importantly, we have the leadership to guide us there.