Caroline Flint left Cabinet today clutching her State of Housing market speaking notes, and the snappers got a pic of them. Nothing really shocking there, but I bet Caroline would have wished for a more controlled press release! (I hope this does not distract too much from Alistair Darling's wonderful announcement that personal tax allowances will go up by £600 to compensate for the 10p rate change.) Amongst other things they predict "Given present trends ... sizeable falls in [house] prices later this year - at best down 5%-10% year-on-year." She intends to announce extra help for first-time buyers tomorrow, mainly by extending shared equity schemes.

 

(I started writing a reply to another thread on the Flint speech but then thought it might be better if this was posted as a separate entry. It details how we came to today's situation where 50%+ of people in social housing are in the NEET group)

It should not surprise us that again New Labour is claiming that all of society’s ills can be solved through getting people back to work. However, it certainly should disappoint us that this latest attack is made on those most vulnerable in society.

Peter Hain resigns
James Purnell becomes new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Andy Burnham becomes new Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport
Yvette Cooper takes over as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Caroline Flint replaces her as Housing Minister

My mother and I keep having the same fight. She continues to bring the Independent into the house, I continue to try to not let it get to me. There I was flicking through it, pretending not to notice what they were ranting and raving about, when I came across something which moved to a rage only matched by Neal Lawson's Guardian columns.