I no longer believe this government is deliberately acting to allow this massive profiteering from the PPE contracts, water companies, energy providers, etc. I just think they're just so involved with the wealthy cartels, whether privately or through mutual business interests, that they've totally lost control. People like Sunak live in a world of finance, tax avoidance and profit so daren't upset other the inhabitants. US banks and Hong Kong business own our water, the French and Germans control our energy and half a dozen wealthy families own our fishing quotas. What image does that present to a world we're trying to do trade deals with ffs ... ... a soft touch is how Great Britain looks to me and I don't think the government have a clue how to change that. In all honesty I think it suits them this way.
Can you edit your post to add "allow country's of dubious nature take ownership of our premier teams to circumvent our rules and regulations and undertake sportswashing right in front of our very eyes" , or words to that effect...
Some good points made there. I have to confess during the Thatcher years, I nearly stuck my nose in the trough, when public enterprises were privatised. Many people I know did, it was, money for old rope, Cos all you had to do was bid for a number of shares, deposit a small amount. When you received your allocation, you promptly sold them and made a profit. This was the 'loads of money' years. I helped Mum to buy her council house. Now, as you say, most of the monopoly public utilities are literally in the sh it. Providing a poor service at a high price with profits going to overseas owners. There is a huge shortage of houses for those on lower incomes, with no solution in sight. Greed and avarice driving a country's economic policy is not good. When the banks fcuked up, make the less well off pay for it, by reducing the real term wages of, NHS staff, teachers etc. I really don't know if Labour under Starmer will very easily turn things round, its going to take at least 10 years. How do you get public utility monopolies back into state ownership. How do we get more houses (affordable to rent) built when NIMBY's stop them. Similar to wind turbines... power stations etc How do we build things cars etc when we are behind in the technology drive.
Brown field sites. Less likely to have preservation conditions. Fewer people to complain. You could even create more brown field sites by doing away with out-of-town retail parks, thus reinvigorating our town centres.
You are right, but who cleans up the brown field sites? Housing developers generally won't cost it eats into their profits.
Did the same for my mam and also bought my own council house,now I hate Thatcher with a passion for what she did to the people of the north east, but can’t argue that the right to buy was a massive help to working class families, in fact I read a report that in the 20th century the right to buy was the single biggest step in wealth for the working class even more beneficial than the NHS ,don’t know if this was correct,but I suppose she had to give us something for all the pain and carnage she imposed
True. Dealing with ecological and heritage preservation conditions eats into their profits too. I suppose legislation could state that any green field development had to be offset by brown field development. It would be unavoidable for them then. Don't know if it would work, just an idea.
One controversial site, could be the old steelworks in Middlesbrough. I recently played the Cleveland Golf course and lots of the old structure has been taken down. There is a huge political/bribery/fraud case brewing about the renovation. Houses by the sea and river very marketable. Like at S Shields.
Would be a nice location if done well. I don't know anything about the case with it, what's all that about? There shouldn't be any ground condition problems should there? They've built houses all over the steelworks site in Consett.
I actually did not argue that it was wrong to sell council houses to long term council tenants. The problem was that they did not plough the sale proceeds into new council houses! Iirc they even stopped local councils borrowing money for direct labour builds. I believe milk snatcher Thatcher effectively took the money.
Yep it was that woman. Reduce council housing stock with right to buy and ringfence monies from sales so that it couldn't be used to build new council housing stock = higher rents for private landlords. Simples
Weren't councils told by the Thatcher government that they had to use the proceeds of right to buy to pay off their debts? Obviously the wrong policy but not really some grand conspiracy.
Don’t know who actually pocketed the sale money to be honest marra, i know a few years later i was blaming Thatcher (obviously) but i was shouted down and was told blame your precious labour council,would love to know the answers
Schools, social services, hospitals, dentists and doctors in towns are already swamped ... ... shoving up hundreds more homes is great but asks more questions than it answers.
Ah yes... only in part... Thatcher wanted to reduce taxes to win votes, so councils were given less money from central govt. And some of the proceeds went to central govt
And then the local (usually Labour) council gets grief from it's electorate for worsening services. Win win for the ****house Tories
Of course but if you vote in an ideology of ‘free trade’ you get free trade. Free, no intervention. But profit is king not people and high profit comes from overcharging and underpaying people and getting cheap resources which also aren’t ethical. Business is fine but needs regulation and fairness imposed on it and the least equitable and least ethical should pay a high fee for it in taxation.
