Quote Originally Posted by pipster View Post
If you are going to stand on a platform and protest / shout about something - and then do something else - it's wrong on every level. She will counter (like Abbott) that she was doing it for her family. Which is a valent attempt - but it doesnt wash.
Raynor has taken the offer (of Thatcher I guess) on the chance to get on the property ladder, be responsible for her own home, keep it clean and tidy, look after it and make the neighbourhood a better place. Far too often when it's the council's job to look after somewhere rather than the person living there - it doesnt take long for the neighbourhood to become a sh1thole.

She has deprived someone else the chance of making a start in life without having a mortgage round their necks. It should have been - move in - get a job get settled - save up - move out. But people dont - they realise they are on a good screw and wont shift - like Bob Crow - on 120K a year and still wouldnt move out of his council house
Council housing should have remained as a publicly owned rental option for anyone - regardless of circumstances.

As it was when the majority of Council housing was built on the back of slum clearances and war damage.

When I first started working for my Council housing service in the mid 1980s there was still a massive pride by many in being Council tenants. They felt Council housing was a social achievement. They felt pride in paying their rent. They had rights as tenants as well as obligations. They had no interest in becoming owner occupiers or seeing their home as an asset to make money from. Tenants Associations were strong, and important parts of the community and the local policy making process. They were consulted and usually involved in the way the Council developed.

Then came the growing impact of Right To Buy, underfunding, and national/local policies that created 'sink estates' and concentrations of poverty, deprivation, alcohol/drug dependency and mental health crises. From a tenure of choice, Council housing became a tenure of last resort - and the Labour Party under Blair (endorsing the Thatcher approach) did a lot to cement that view - although they did bring in the Decent Homes Programme and Choice Based Lettings.

But there is no reason why public housing cannot be a tenure of choice again - as it is in many European countries.