A fascinating report by the organisation of London Development Research has thumped on the desk of London Mayor Ken Livingstone. It has found that people looking for somewhere to live did not buy a staggering 67 per cent of the new private homes built in London last year. They were bought by investors, by professional property companies, by property funds and especially by that scourge of the first time buyers, buy to let landlords.
In once affordable areas of London like Tottenham, buy-to-let landlords flush with profits have been snapping up houses, driving up prices and, at the same time, driving down the quality of life in the area. For one, they invariably rent to transient tenants who have no stake in Tottenham. In addition the buildings themselves suffer from neglect as avaricious landlords refuse to do even cursory repairs and maintenance lest it retard their profit. (Incidentally this is increasingly becoming a feature on council estates too, where leaseholders often try to veto improvements for tenants out of fear of the cost to themselves).
Yet another emerging trend is for private landlords such as these to evict for any reason under a measure known as ‘retaliatory action’ (which is legal by the way) obliterating any sense of security and rendering assured short-hold tenancies less than the value of the paper they are written on.
At the same time, overall homelessness has gone up by 14.5 per cent while in London over-crowding in council homes actually doubled between 1991 and 2001.
1.6 million languish in misery on the waiting lists in England, a scandalous rise of 500,000 since Labour came to power.
For many this situation, as a Shelter report highlighted, means a return to ‘Dickensian conditions’. The overall social effect is incalculable.
Why the London Development Research report is so damaging to the ideologues of the right is that it demonstrates that the market does not work. Following on from the equally chaotic neo-liberal reforms in both transport and health, in another critical area, the market, rather than offer a solution, is again shown to be a disastrous compound on any pre-existing problem.
As things stand, for example, the entire Green Belt could be carpeted with housing without affecting the housing crisis, because under present conditions the main beneficiaries would not be the homeless, the overcrowded or even first time buyers, but buy-to-let speculators.
What is worse for the neo-liberal, is that even a bias toward what is termed ‘affordable housing’ (a weasel term with multiple uses) won’t quite cut it either as the same dynamic would apply. Builders and speculators would as trends already show, inevitably collaborate to maximise profits and keep prices high. Tactics already known to be employed include building insufficient housing so as to keep prices artificially high or investing in two bedroom flats (deemed ideal for rent) at the expense of homes more suitable for families. Or put another way, demand would not be met by supply.
Various sanctions are suggested, including a stipulation that the buyers of certain properties must live in them. Or instead, or as well, a clamp down on the tax breaks that buy-to-let landlords now enjoy. These might help but would certainly not resolve the core problem.
The ultimate common sense solution is one that does admittedly fly in the face of Government policy for the last 30 years, but is at the same time, staring everyone in the face: Council housing -rent only - is the elephant in the sitting room.
From all mainstream parties and media pundits it would at the very least demand a humbling and unwelcome admission that in one crucial area they had got it badly wrong. Quite simply ‘we’re not all middle class now’. And never will be. The working class is not withering away. Indeed wherever you choose to look, a plethora of statistics demonstrate again and again that class is as divisive and decisive as ever.
Andrew Marr’s conclusion in the recent BBC2 programme ‘History of Modern Britain’, that ‘We are all Thatcher’s children’ is also very much wide of the mark. So for him and other New Labour groupies such as Observer columnist Will Hutton, who not too long ago described ‘council estates as a physical tribute to communist thinking’ a chilling realisation awaits.
Thatcher did not change society irreversibly as they had hoped and imagined. The catastrophe visited on housing proves it. So there will be no lasting Thatcher legacy. Instead she is destined to be a mere footnote in history. And so ultimately are they.
A fascinating report by the organisation of London Development Research has thumped on the desk of London Mayor Ken Livingstone. It has found that people looking for somewhere to live did not buy a staggering 67 per cent of the new private homes built in London last year. They were bought by investors, by professional property companies, by property funds and especially by that scourge of the first time buyers, buy to let landlords.
In once affordable areas of London like Tottenham, buy-to-let landlords flush with profits have been snapping up houses, driving up prices and, at the same time, driving down the quality of life in the area. For one, they invariably rent to transient tenants who have no stake in Tottenham. In addition the buildings themselves suffer from neglect as avaricious landlords refuse to do even cursory repairs and maintenance lest it retard their profit. (Incidentally this is increasingly becoming a feature on council estates too, where leaseholders often try to veto improvements for tenants out of fear of the cost to themselves).
Yet another emerging trend is for private landlords such as these to evict for any reason under a measure known as ‘retaliatory action’ (which is legal by the way) obliterating any sense of security and rendering assured short-hold tenancies less than the value of the paper they are written on.
At the same time, overall homelessness has gone up by 14.5 per cent while in London over-crowding in council homes actually doubled between 1991 and 2001.
1.6 million languish in misery on the waiting lists in England, a scandalous rise of 500,000 since Labour came to power.
For many this situation, as a Shelter report highlighted, means a return to ‘Dickensian conditions’. The overall social effect is incalculable.
Why the London Development Research report is so damaging to the ideologues of the right is that it demonstrates that the market does not work. Following on from the equally chaotic neo-liberal reforms in both transport and health, in another critical area, the market, rather than offer a solution, is again shown to be a disastrous compound on any pre-existing problem.
As things stand, for example, the entire Green Belt could be carpeted with housing without affecting the housing crisis, because under present conditions the main beneficiaries would not be the homeless, the overcrowded or even first time buyers, but buy-to-let speculators.
What is worse for the neo-liberal, is that even a bias toward what is termed ‘affordable housing’ (a weasel term with multiple uses) won’t quite cut it either as the same dynamic would apply. Builders and speculators would as trends already show, inevitably collaborate to maximise profits and keep prices high. Tactics already known to be employed include building insufficient housing so as to keep prices artificially high or investing in two bedroom flats (deemed ideal for rent) at the expense of homes more suitable for families. Or put another way, demand would not be met by supply.
Various sanctions are suggested, including a stipulation that the buyers of certain properties must live in them. Or instead, or as well, a clamp down on the tax breaks that buy-to-let landlords now enjoy. These might help but would certainly not resolve the core problem.
The ultimate common sense solution is one that does admittedly fly in the face of Government policy for the last 30 years, but is at the same time, staring everyone in the face: Council housing -rent only - is the elephant in the sitting room.
From all mainstream parties and media pundits it would at the very least demand a humbling and unwelcome admission that in one crucial area they had got it badly wrong. Quite simply ‘we’re not all middle class now’. And never will be. The working class is not withering away. Indeed wherever you choose to look, a plethora of statistics demonstrate again and again that class is as divisive and decisive as ever.
Andrew Marr’s conclusion in the recent BBC2 programme ‘History of Modern Britain’, that ‘We are all Thatcher’s children’ is also very much wide of the mark. So for him and other New Labour groupies such as Observer columnist Will Hutton, who not too long ago described ‘council estates as a physical tribute to communist thinking’ a chilling realisation awaits.
Thatcher did not change society irreversibly as they had hoped and imagined. The catastrophe visited on housing proves it. So there will be no lasting Thatcher legacy. Instead she is destined to be a mere footnote in history. And so ultimately are they.