Initially I was going to talk about a subject dear to my heart, the NHS. However after reading Darrell Goodliffe's excellent blog today, I have decided to leave you the reader with a chance to read his piece. http://momentsofc.wordpress.com/2012/0209/the-tina-government/ I heartily recommend you read this. Darrell is at present standing for a place on Labour's NEC, I do hope you give him your support. He is a good Socialist and the sort of person that we need in the Labour party hierarchy today, putting across a different point of view to the Blairite wing of the party.
Anyway back to todays idea, it is one I have been pondering over for the last couple of weeks and up to now I find it a much fairer example then the one we are living under at present.
As things stand right now we have home owners at the top, people struggling to pay their mortgages next, then council house tenants, finally those living in private accommodation. With many unscrupulous landlords leeching off them, making a fortune from sub-standard houses. This evil government has now further punished the latter by cutting the housing benefit they are entitled to. The reply, "well they should just move into a council house" does not wash anymore as there are insufficient amounts of council houses available. This courtesy of Thatchers right to buy idea. Without building more council houses for the future generations, which due to low wages are unable to get onto the infamous housing ladder.
So here is my modest solution to this problem, one which does away with the parasite landlords and in my opinion gives us a much more equal situation than we have at present. The councils should take full ownership of ALL properties, even those presently owned by their inhabitants. Every tenant will be entitled to live in the property they abide in until they die. At that point the house will be up for another person/family to move into.
Rent will be paid direct to the council, for arguments sake, £150 per month for flats, £250 for 2 bedroom houses, £350 for 3 bedroom, £450 for 4 bedroom and so on. Those struggling to pay their rent will still be entitled to housing benefit, although I fancy at those prices a lot more will be able to cope in comparison to the extortionate amounts the landlords and mortgage companies today charge.
In a town with say 500,000 homes in it, lets say there are 80,000 flats 120,000 2beds, 200,000 3 beds, 80,000 4 beds and 20,000 5 bed properties. take 10% off for those on housing benefit, the council would end every month with £143 million in its coffers. This huge amount of money would then be spent on maintaining those properties. The council would employ its own electricians, plumbers, builders etc to keep the housing in good condition.
The people will have more money in their pockets at the end of the month, the councils will have more money and there will be more apprenticeships and skilled men and women out there working. Rather than the disgraceful situation we have today with private capitalists and banks becoming more and more affluent as the majority of the working class get poorer. The only losers in this new system are the fat bankers and landlords in the private sector. Do any of the working class with houses falling apart around them, due to not enough money to repair them, or who have landlords who don't give a damn as long as they get their rent, care ?
So that's my simple alternative to the present world we live in, if you like what I have said or disagree strongly and would like to point out the failings in my argument, please feel free to comment. Thank you for taking the time to read todays entry, more coming soon.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
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