Gordon Brown's Last Chance

DavidParkinson Fri Jul 25, 2008 at 11:47:07 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

With defeat looming Mr Brown should adopt the following radical policy to win a wide range of voter support. First impose a windfall tax on buy-to-let Landlords who have made excessive capital gains on their properties over the last 11 years. This would provide two benefits. First, property prices would fall, as landlords were forced in some cases to sell, helping first time buyers onto the property ladder. Second, tax revenue would be raised which should be used to build council houses.  This would also have the effect of supporting the building industry during the current slump.  The right to buy policy should be dropped.

These actions would meet the basic needs of people for housing and would prove the Labour Party had a social conscience that was worth voting for without imposing extra taxes on income or business. Voters between the ages of 18 to 38 would vote for a policy that gave all a right to a home.





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Gordon Brown's Last Chance | 13 comments (13 topical)

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#1)

by rosie on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 12:05:05 AM GMT

'First, property prices would fall....'

Great that will win over all those Midlands and Southern marginal seats where the next election will be won or lost and Labour as an electoral force will live or die. Get real.

Cruddas for leader!


Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#2)

by jdc on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 08:39:15 AM GMT

So is the line from Team Cruddas that housing shouldn't be affordable?

Most people accept that house prices have gone up too much.

Most people accept that they're going to come down.

Most people think that's a good thing.

They are in fact going to fall, whatever the Government does.

The worst political action for the Government is to claim to be able to keep them up, tax people to achieve that, and fail anyway.

Guess what line we've chosen. Oh, yeah, right.

We'll alienate everyone. Taxpayers, homeowners, and renters.

Bonus.


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#13)

by jkitleft on Sun Jul 27, 2008 at 05:38:39 PM GMT

Why is it that rosie chooses policies that are the opposite of what Cruddas supports, and then keeps saying 'Cruddas for leader'?


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#14)

by GetGordonOut on Sun Jul 27, 2008 at 07:18:00 PM GMT

Err - Another Tax to try and fill the empty coffers that Labour have drained by increasing the size of government and spending billions of pounds willy nilly without thought and without results.

How desperate and how disgraceful.

Gordon doesn't need a last chance he needs to quit along with the whole Labour Government before they make an even bigger mess than they already have.

What money should have been spent on is increased storage for Gas so that we have a decent reserve and can buy at the right price rather than having only 2 weeks of reserves at any one time. Look at the Netherlands they hold 3 months reserves and their utility bills havent shot up like ours.

Education ? Schools are no better and in some cases a lot worse than they were 12 years ago . NHS - Infections rife on the wards and billions wasted on an IT System that doesn't work as planned. The armed forces fighting on two fronts but without any decent equipment since Labour continually slash their budget. The Navy is now no better than a coastal defence force.

We the people of Britain are sick and tired of this government and no matter what they do we will kick them out at the next election. Hopefully they will have a bit of honour and call an election before June 2010 - but I don't think so as there are far too many cronies on the gravy train.


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#3)

by lulu on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 10:24:10 AM GMT

<i>First impose a windfall tax on buy-to-let Landlords who have made excessive capital gains on their properties over the last 11 years.</i>

 

Are you mental? All this would do is either force a fire sale of property so driving down prices (and reducing the return of your tax) or force rents up as landlords look to recover the money they've lost elsewhere.

 

Either policy is an electoral disaster.

As for all the people here banging on about building council houses. Have you ever lived on a council estate? Do you know why one Labour MP regularly refers to his council's housing department as "the class enemy"? Have you even stopped for 10 seconds to wonder why the vast majority of council tenants who can buy do buy?

 

By all means lets build more houses, but forget the idea that a return to 1930s municipalism is the answer to any problem. Working people have moved on, it is time we did too.


Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#4)

by jdc on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 11:05:36 AM GMT

Make your mind up. If all council estates were that bad the tenants wouldn't buy, they'd keep saving until they could afford somewhere in a different part of town.

Also, I live in a private conversion above a shop. I'd love to move to the council and ex-council estates to the West. They're better built and closer to transport.

They're also way out of my price range.


Also also, just like estate agent profits, stamp duty revenue is a volume business, so forced sales would raise more money than the current situation of 'few sales'.

Also also also, there's a difference between building council houses, and building tower blocks and monolithic estates. Really it's just about keeping the pace of building up as the market for sale slows. Otherwise everyone loses in the long run.


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#5)

by Free Radical on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 12:01:31 PM GMT

The idea of driving down property prices when they are nose-diving lacks sanity.

The problem is that confidence in the property market underpins a lot of spending. I'm sure the market will continue to fall some way but that will rebound on consumer demand and risks driving the economy into recession - especially coupled with global rises in energy costs that risk decreasing global demand.

House prices are undoubtedly a bubble and some fall is inevitable if not desirable, but you need to keep the wider picture of the economy in mind.

In addition such a move would hit a lot of middle income people - not just big landlords and would be seen widely as unfair.

Now, increasing spending on council house building would of course be a good thing in a recession (and any other time) - especially as construction is contracting sharply.


Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#6)

by jkitleft on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 12:16:41 PM GMT

Yup, we need to start building council homes. And I don't think the right-to-buy should be dropped. But it should be amended to ensure that all homes sold are replaced.


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#7)

by jdc on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 12:17:53 PM GMT

It underpins a lot of spending because it enables people to borrow more.

Long-term, that's unsustainable. We have, as a society, forgotten that what you borrow needs to be paid back. It is not possible to rely on rising asset values when the value to repay the debt is not being created.


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#8)

by Free Radical on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 12:42:12 PM GMT

The whole of capitalism is predicated upon borrowing of one sort or another, and has been since the 15th Century. Fine, if you wish to abolish capitalism - as a socialist I'm happy to look at other possible models... But if you don't, it's the rising consumer endebtedness that is the biggest problem, tied to falsely inflated housing prices - it's been clear for a while that this was a bubble waiting to burst. But it's not borrowing per se.

As for national debt, it's sensible, within limits to relax borrowing on a downturn. And increased public spending in the right way can be very useful, as the 1930s showed.


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#9)

by adwilliams134 on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 02:50:07 PM GMT

In response to one of the posters above,  I was brought up on a council estate in the North West.  I find your remarks and streo-typing offensive.  


1. Council estates get run-down and 'slummy' because of lack of investment.  The obvious answer to that is to 'ring-fence' the rental income so that it can only be used on expanding and maintaining stock.


2.  SOME council estates have anti-social problems.  This is caused by a variety of things, but mainly because they have a higher proportion of residents with drink, drugs or mental illness than non-council estates.  They also have a far higher proprtion of single parent families, in particular young girls with several children by different - all absent - fathers.      This didn't happen because they live on council estates,  it happened because the council has a duty to house people according to need and as their needs are the greatest, they get housed and you then get a concentration of 'unfortunates'.


But whatever,  amongst the low-paid housing is a major issue.  They cannot afford to buy and unless they become homeless they will never get a council house. (My wife and I have been on the waiting list for 11 years. We get allocated half a point a year.  To qualify we need over 100 points.).  The reality for the low-paid is being ripped-off in the private rental sector.  My wife and I don't earn enough to get a mortgage,  not that it makes any difference as we are both 50 now so we would have a hell of a job getting a mortgage.   We aren't actually that low-paid for the area in which we live - probably about average.  We Gross 30K between us before stoppages.  We do skilled jobs but outside the south east wages are very low.  I'm actually in charge of 4 people and am skilled IT, she's a team leader in a sales department.  Our rent on a 100 year old 2 bed terraced house is 450 pcm which for our income is a substantial amount to outlay.  Twice in the last 2 years we have had our home sold from under our feet by landlords and had to move.


It is utterly disgraceful that this is happening in this country under a so-called Labour government.  


We have no company pensions.  We don't earn enough to buy a house. We have to pay exorbitant rent with no protection.   I, like most of the low-paid, am heartily sick to death of hearing how low-paid government employees are.  It's twaddle.  In areas like ours people aspire to get government & council jobs because the pay and conditions are better.   Binmen earn more than me but despite numerous applications (to move from skilled IT to binman) I have yet to be succesful.


This country has a false wealth that is presumed because of working tax credits that make people with children artificially better off than those without.


How can somebody with children doing the same job as me for the same company be so much better off with the credits that they holiday abroad and can afford to buy a house on a mortgage?   Surely tax-credits should be at a level that gives the an equal life to mine, not a superior one.


Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#12)

by fearlessfrank on Sun Jul 27, 2008 at 03:41:59 PM GMT

They also have a far higher proprtion of single parent families, in particular young girls with several children by different - all absent - fathers.      This didn't happen because they live on council estates,  it happened because the council has a duty to house people according to need...

Exactly - when is someone going to grasp the nettle and stop pouring our money into sustaining this ridiculous situation? A situation which keeps people like adwilliams134 out of the kind of housing they are (or shoule be) entitled to


[ Parent ]

Re: Gordon Brown's Last Chance (#11)

by Floating voter on Sat Jul 26, 2008 at 04:59:05 PM GMT

"Look at the compliments the PM got from the African leaders due to the huge ammounts of aid he has given to them"

So what? Every time he goes abroad he hands out another billion. Of course they are bl**dy grateful, but the truth is that we have our own problems to sort out and we cannot afford to go chucking vast amounts of money abraod when the coffers are empty.

BTW, this is at least the third time I've seen you post this. It's beginning to look contrived at best and a snow job at worst. Are your initials "GB"?


Gordon Brown's Last Chance | 13 comments (13 topical)