Gordon Brown and the Racist Housing Policy

As my regular reader will know, I have a bee in my bonnet about housing. Frequently over the past fifteen years or more, the media has reported, without ever checking the facts, that there is a shortage of housing. When what they should have been reporting was that there is a shortage of affordable housing. This misleading reporting has lead to house prices becoming extremely over inflated and was the fuel that feed the growth in credit and the inevitable banking crash. However, this is not a posting about the Credit Crunch, but about housing.

Back in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became Prime minister, her administration started selling off the social housing stock. Had this been at the market price and had the local authorities then been able to use the monies to build more accommodation then this policy could have been acceptable. But the properties were sold to the tenants for discounts of up to sixty percent and the councils were not allowed to use the funds from these sales to build more houses. Even though the revenues from the sales meant that councils would only be able to build one home for every three sold.

This policy of selling off the public housing stock was, in part, a way of manipulating the electoral system. As the thinking was that people who live in council houses would be more inclined to vote Labour. Also as there were substantial discounts, bribes, and the Labour party initially were determined to reverse the policy if elected, this made it less likely that traditional labour voters would vote to loose a cash hand out like that.

For those lucky enough to have been able to be living in a council house, or to have been allocated a council property, many did make money from this policy. However, it also greatly diminished the social housing stock to the point that only a very few people in the most desperate need of social housing ever get offered local authority housing.

When in 1997 Labour were finally re-elected, this policy of selling off social housing was not reversed. As for those that had been lucky in the housing lottery, had gained and in some cases, these people had moved up the financial social ladder too. A few had even become rich from this too.

Therefore Labour kept the policy in place as it was seen as a way of raising people out of poverty. While a laudable aim, the problem was all the really good properties were gone, about four million homes, and there was a waiting list of four million people wanting and needing social housing.

Had there been at least some building of replacement social housing stock during the time when all these homes were sold off cheaply, then the waiting list for social housing would have been lower, but that did not happen. One of the side effects of this, was to prevent people from taking positions as Nurses, Social Workers and Teachers, creating not just holes in public services but exacerbated many of the social problems we have in our society today.

It is the announcement today, Monday, by the government that councils will now be offering social housing based upon a link to the area that has triggered this posting. As I heard the news on the radio, my reaction was “what housing” as most local authorities just do not have the housing stock to rent. What they do have is not of good quality.

Then I realised that what was being meant by this announcement was social housing was to go to white people.

In the European elections two members of the BNP (The Nazi British Nationalist Party) were elected. Partly because there is a perception that immigrants get allocated houses ahead of the indigenous population. Even though this is untrue, research has shown this to be untrue, but it is part of the lies of hate that the racists put out.

By Gordon Brown pandering to the propaganda of the racists he is reinforcing the assumption that immigrants have been getting priority over British people. Additionally as there are not the homes available to allocate, nor the money to build them, this announcement will only strengthen these racist extremists.

This really is a desperate act that shows very poor political judgement by Gordon Brown. Ever since the 1997 Labour victory, Gordon Brown has been desperate for power and to be Prime minister. Two years ago he became PM without any election. Now in a desperate attempt to win back the racist working class, he is enacting racist policies.

It will fail, as this will enable the racists to say they were right that immigrants were getting the houses. And will increase the votes they get, if we ever get the election we need.

Personally I think that Gordon Brown must go. Even though a conservative government is distasteful and that is likely to be the next administration, but GB has been a disaster for this country and the economy.

Not least because even back in 1997 there was a clear need for replacement of the social housing stock that had been sold off as bribes to the tenants. But Gordon as chancellor had created the economic housing bubble via cheap and expanded credit. Solve the housing problem by letting everyone buy their own house, may seem like a good idea, but not everyone could buy. And by constantly talking about a shortage of housing, he and the rest of the government were pushing up house prices. Well with all their second homes funded by the tax payers it was in their interest to see prices boom.

The problem was that the people that needed social housing are still there and still in need of social housing. As well as having been left behind by the economic boom, they are the people suffering most from the economic bust. Oh but Gordon brown had ended Boom and Bust, and cording to Gordon its all Americas fault. The disenfranchised poor don't believe that any more than the rest of us. And when the racists come along with their scapegoats, is it any wonder that the racists get believed? Especially when its clear that the politicians in government have been lying and cheating all the way to the expenses office.

What is so stupid about our current situation here in Britain is; the money that was used to bail out the banks could have fully solved two of our major problems. That of climate change by building a series of Geo thermal power stations and the social housing crisis for less. Then we would have zero carbon emissions and no longer be subject to the fluctuations of fossil fuel prices. And had we built the social housing needed, then we would not have had the house price bubble that caused the collapse of the banks.

As an economist Gordon Brown has been a disaster for this country, as a leader whatever credibility he had disappeared when he instructed councils to allocate housing in a discriminatory manner.

On all important matters, Gordon has got it wrong. For a man that has craved power for so long, in the short time that he has had that power, he has done nothing but abuse it and condemn the British people to a dismal future.