Basically I'm a capitalist but what about this for an idealistic policy...

no, the state is other people.

a persons house should be completely separate from the state.

to own an empty house is a very beautiful thing, I know a family who got their house back after the fall of the Berlin wall.
they had lived in England all those years after WW2, and the father refused to speak German ever again.
His son and daughter returned to Germany after reunification and visited their former family home.

It was a house by a lake, just the wrong side of the border.

It is a beautiful thing, lfc. I'm having a bit of a laugh really but the system in the UK is broke and needs fixing.

A building that was loved, and lost.

yes nick that`s true.
I think its so important that a house can be retained and passed down through the family, but its not easy.

Do you know the family, for as long as I can remember, refused to buy German cars,or washing machines, fridges etc
And went on holiday in France, Spain, Italy, never Germany..until that day decades later they went back.

Not only have we had decades of decreasing supply of dwellings and increasing population but also banks becoming more and more reckless with their lending.

Up until the late eighties, it was almost unheard of to get a mortgage of more than 2.5 x one's income. (A couple might get 3x plus 1x)

nick - it makes a lot of sense.

The housing boom has no doubt created vast wealth for many but has now become a total disaster. Astronomical rents has led to a £25Bn housing benefit bill. One bed flats going for £200k. It's crazy.

I consider myself a right wing socialist. Right wing on a lot of social issues and some financial ones. However state intervention is always necessary to guard against greed and to look after future generations.

IF the state owned all property and rented it back to us at 1/4 of current value,(onus on the tennant to pay to maintain the property) the wealth created would be phenomenal. The housing benefit bill would be close to zero and we'd all be so wealthy we would spend, spend, spend, leading to growth in virtually every industry. (Wages would have to be kept the same though...)

One of the many problems with this is exporters to the uk would raise their prices but we would then be forced into being less reliant on them.

Basically rents and mortagages are killing us and something needs to be done for our grandkids and beyond.

a persons house should be completely separate from the state,LOL,unless you take steps to say otherwise in future your dead body is even owned by the state,

I'm not a tribalist in my politics - I realise there will be a trade-off as a result of any economic policy.

I think Injera may be on a similar wavelength to me. As I said in my OP, I'm a capitalist at heart but I do believe in social justice.


Astronomical rents has led to a £25Bn housing benefit bill.

What happens when working people living in rented accommodation retire?

Grenfell tower was owned by the State.
If you don't have your own skin in the game, then you are not going to look after where you live.

Tax evasion, Tax avoidance and uncollect tax cost the government 34 billion a year, there is the bigger problem.

As I said, there's always a trade-off.

I also said I was having some fun with my OP but in all seriousness the housing situation is a mess and we are heading towards a cliff edge.

Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is a big issue but it costs a lot of money to investigate and collect.

Undeclared income from rental properties owned by private landlords results in about £600m pa of lost revenue to HMRC. A few years ago the government set up a voluntary declaration scheme whereby landlords could come clean and declare income previously not disclosed.

Why? Because they don't have the resources to chase it themselves.

of course it's legal - close all loop holes.

Part of the reason why UK government does has a huge housing and NHS crisis is because they spunk so much money away on other things, the list in endless if you google how much does UK government waste. Biggest examples are Billions on wars in Iraq and Afghanstan, 17 billion on HS2 to get fat cats from A to B about 15 minutes quicker, the Millenium Dome (nearly a billion)which was a white Elephant until the American's saved it and a funny but not really funny one, buying light bulbs for £22 pound when their value was 65 pence.

I agree that house prices are ridiculous though, and so is the cost of renting and they were right to clamp down on Private Landlords charging poorer people through the nose for those on benefits. But the country really needs to stop wasting money so freely.

What happens when working people living in rented accommodation retire?

nick - there are more renters these days and there will be MANY more in years to come. You huighlight a ticking time bomb. Decent pensions will fade away, home ownership will become less.

So to answer your question, those who rent and retire will bneed state help. In other words we're toast.. The national debt is on its way to 2 trillion now. It will get to 5 trillion quite easily.

As for thes stoopid demos today in London...End Austerity??? Do they have ANY idea at the level of public spending in the last 7 years????

close all loop holes

Easier said than done. Either that or there is not the will to do so. It would also require international co-operation.


£17 billion on HS2   The government currently forecasts it will cost £57 billion! (and we know how accurate these forecasts are.)

On the subject of forecasts, I can't remember the numbers, but the P&L of the Dome was based on ridiculously high numbers of visitors which were fanciful to put it mildly.

the so called hard right winger who was going to drive a coach and horses through the foreign aid bill,pushy pattel has so far managed to double the amount of workers in her department,women with power you cant stop,em

What you're suggesting, nick, is nationalisation. A marvellous idea
As opposed to privatisation.

It was the way transport, utilities, communications and coal (among others) worked.
Which keeps a little of the wealth away from those who already have it, because there's no profit incentive for management, it's all for the public's good and profits get put back in.
Also, employees tend to be better appreciated because they're less of a commodity.

The non-stop privatisation programme for the past 35 years has truly come home to roost, hence your suggestion.
Many of those making the most from all it have been in, are in or have links to Government. Weird that.

they waste billions but are allowed to own everyones homes and do what they want with them

Study - again, I think, there is a trade-off.

I believe there are certain sectors of the economy which are naturally suited to state ownership. On the other hand, the private sector usually runs things more efficiently.

Maybe the Housing Association model might work in other industries: ie you have what is a basically private organisation but is run on a not-for-profit basis and is monitored closely by the government.

It's a big subject. As is treatment of staff which is one of my hobby horses.

Which mainly involves charging as much rent as possible and keeping housing stocks a bit low, because so many of them own property.

That was to s_h

It would be a good idea to not let any more in - just for starters.

off the top of my head

half private half public owned

therefore - competition and comparison??

I think, nick, it depends on the definition of "efficiently"
or more exactly "efficiency"
This generally just means sacking loads of people, making those left work harder and for less money.
Not necessarily because it's efficient but because wages suddenly become an evil, an expense and profit is paramount. And so non-profit making parts of the business are closed off, which usually affects only those customers losing out (as a pure example, no mobile phone signals in rural areas) who are relatively few and whose upset will be covered by the profit made from the bigger numbers who are still served.

It's all fairly standard through all businesses, I think and while housing is a business and a means to profit it will be pretty much the same.

I've never understood why measures just couldn't have been put into place to make nationalised industries more efficient!
Perhaps we were just told that private ownership is better and the little bribes and continued driving home of that message had the desired effect. Or perhaps I'm just a cynic who naively believes many things are simpler than they're made out. Obviously I think its the former.

Difficult to argue with what you say but in my experience, staff in the private sector are usually more motivated, harder working and are of a higher calibre than their public sector counterparts. Maybe it's a vicuious (or virtous) circle.

I've just been watching a documentary on London Live: "The Super-Rich and Us".

as a pure example, no mobile phone signals in rural areas

That's an example of people not willing to pay the real cost of a service and wanting others to subsidise them.

As for housing. Governments find it easier to subsidise housing from tax revenues than charge the true cost. With anything that is subsidized, demand will exceed supply, which means corruption and inefficiencies creep in.

There seems to be an assumption that house prices determine the cost of renting, whereas the relationship is the other way around. As we are seeing here in Perth. Rents have declined, followed by house prices, as the mining boom tails off and people leave.

If you want cheaper houses and rents, reduce the population.

If a countries residential property is owned by the state that is a country that will become poorer and less creative and fail. Indeed the less access and help given by the state to housing the better it will be for society and the country.

It is the link between the need to provide for shelter, in order to attract a mate to reproduce , that drives an individual to be hard working and to use their gifts and talents to achieve this...so as they can have sex with a female and reproduce !

Once this link is broken, as it increasingly is in Britain , then that country will decline, it will not produce hard working people, and the new ideas and creativity in all aspects of life  ,  science , the arts, technology , medicine etc will disappear .
This is what drives men to be inventive and creative , it must be difficult and require substance and character to provide a home to attract women .
If this link is broken then a society becomes weak and fails.

"All residential property owned by the State"
Sounds good to me ...can I have a nice house in Mayfair please ...