There are not many societies which deride the poor i.e. the working class as much as we do (see Pippa Middleton dressed at a fancy dress party as a chav). I'm going to join on this for a minute but just bear with me for a minute... I have known so many people throughout my life who have pretended to be homeless, with their parents' encouragement, in order to get themselves in a hostel. Thus ensuring a coveted London council flat in the future, heavily subsidised by the taxpayer. Many council workers are in on this scam and actively tell their friends to get on the housing list, I have been offered this myself. I turned it down and although my morals are intact I cannot help kicking myself as property prices continue to soar and rents becoming more expensive than mortgages. As a child of a parent with those horrific endowment mortgages (after 25 years of an interest based mortgage we will still owe more than a third of the cost of the house, thanks Conservative government and an unregulated mortgage market!) I find myself getting annoyed that council and housing association tenants are paying about 10% of what private renters pay and less if they are on housing benefits.
But this is what the government wants us to do!! To feel angry at the poorer members of society who are just trying to secure their own lives, rather than redirecting anger at the state and how they have let things get to the stage where a studio flat i.e. a box, can cost £300 a week excluding bills and council tax. Instead of facing down greed and forcing landlords to downsize their rent demands or tax them according to how many properties they have etc. they would rather, yep you guessed it bow down to the FREE MARKET system. Nooo don't tax the bankers too much, they will leave the country, Nooo don't sort out the housing prices, that will mess up the free market system. So they are wilfully ignoring the unaffordability (yes I made up a word) of a basic human need and even more absurdly, they would rather stump up the cash in the form of housing benefit.
Many estate agencies do not accept housing benefit tenants anyway for security reasons. Furthermore, housing benefit has been cut in an attempt to move the poor where they should be, in cheap, crap housing just like the good old tower block days. Instead of being unwilling to pay for poor people's sky high rent, why not make sure the rent is not that high in the 1st place? Radical idea I know! If they were forced down, what would really happen? Will the landlords themselves become poor? Err no, obviously not. If tenants had a little more shopping change, would that also not better this flawed economy? Err, obviously YES.
I have had at least 3 people encourage me to do the same thing... either be a chav or have nothing to eat every bloody month.
ReplyDelete