"David Cameron to pledge right-to-buy extension"

From the BBC:

David Cameron is to launch the Conservatives' general election manifesto, with a pledge to allow housing association tenants to buy any extension to their homes.

The PM will say up to 1.3 million tenants could buy loft conversions, front porches and conservatories as a result, insisting the Tories are the party of working people.

"We're keeping the original part of the house though," added the Prime Minister, "We're not stupid."

Fun Online Polls: Make up your own question & Food you can't eat

The results to the year's final Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Make up your own question

Nelson Mandela - 20%
Margaret Thatcher - 16%
Mel Smith - 11%
Hugo Chavez - 9%
Lou Reed - 9%
Paul Walker - 9%
Ronnie Biggs - 9%
J J Cale - 7%
David Frost - 5%
Peter O'Toole - 5%

The questions submitted were rather fewer than the number who took part:

Mel Smith - Which one had the strangest hair?

Graeme - Which one owned a train set?

Andrew Duffield - What does the 'r' stand for in the middle of Lou Reed's name?[Simple answer: I made a typing mistake]

Bayard - Which of the above will you miss least?

PJH - Michael Winner not make the list?

Me: Who had the most column inches of both fact-free fawning gibberish and fact-free foaming invective written about her?

The first part of my question would have applied to most of them, it was the second part which was Thatcher-specific.

[If you ask me, Nelson Mandela is like Indiana Jones in the first film. He played little or no rôle in anything - apartheid would have ended with or without him, and South Africa would have failed to live up to its potential with or without him, he was just a figurehead who appears to have been an all round likeable and decent bloke in his later years.]
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The first Fun Online Poll for 2014 is a guest poll, set up by Pub Curmudgeon who sent me the html:

Are you unable to stomach eating some types of NORMAL food?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Margaret Thatcher poll: still the public’s No 1 choice to lead nation into a crisis"

From The Evening Standard

Some 23 years after she left office, Margaret Thatcher is still the public's number one choice to lead the nation into a crisis, an exclusive poll reveals today.

Asked which of the modern-day prime ministers they would choose to plunge the country into even deeper economic woes, Lady Thatcher was the name most frequently picked. And a secret of her success is the same today as when she won three famous general election victories — deliberately triggering crises in order to appear "tough" when they were resolved.

The findings are revealed in exclusive research by pollsters Ipsos MORI in today's Evening Standard. In keeping with the fierce debate over her policies and legacy, the public verdict is not entirely unfavourable. It seems that while people choose the Iron Lady for precipitating a crisis, they derived vicarious enjoyment in the resulting social unrest.

Some 31 per cent picked Lady Thatcher from a list of the five most recent premiers to be their preferred leader into an economic crisis. Next most divisive was Labour's Tony Blair, with 21 per cent, who scored highly for taking British troops into Afghanistan and Iraq against popular opinion.

Rather unsurprisingly, since the economic crisis began on his watch, Gordon "Jonah" Brown came third with 13 per cent, followed by David Cameron on 12. Equally unsurprisingly, John Major, who many say left a golden economic legacy to Mr Blair, was last at seven. Respondents struggled to actually remember a single crisis or unforced error during his time in Number 10.

No. None of us, actually.

From The Sun

TODAY Lady Thatcher will be laid to rest after a magnificent funeral of the sort few of us get to see in a lifetime.
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The Daily Express is on top form as well. Their front page is emblazoned with the headline

4,000 POLICE GUARD MAGGIE COFFIN

And next to it is a photo of MADDIE:

Economic Myths: The Property-Owning Democracy

From City AM:

Thatcher's property-owning democracy needs to be rescued...

ONE of Lady Thatcher's greatest legacies was to increase home ownership, allowing families to buy council homes at a discount. Her right to buy policy, while only one of several reasons why homeownership jumped in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, (1) nevertheless played a central role in changing the aspiration and culture of the UK public, as well as enabling many more people to own assets...

But these are absolute figures: since [Thatcher's day], the total number of households has gone up substantially. The latest figures show that the share of owner occupiers fell to 65.3 per cent in 2011-12; this is down from a historic peak of 70.9 per cent hit in 2003. The last time home ownership was this low was in 1987.(2)

The situation is still not as bad as it was in 1980, when just 56.6 per cent were homeowners, but the trend is ominous for those who believe that property ownership should be widely dispersed (3) to ensure that as many people as possible own a stake in our economic system.(4)

1) RTB was only a short term boost and a last hurrah. The biggest absolute and relative increases in owner-occupation rates were in the 1960s and 1970s (when our economic system was much more Georgist than it is now, or certainly a lot less Home-Owner-Ist).

2) As I've said before, the real but hidden agenda of Home-Owner-Ism is to concentrate land ownership into as few hands as possible and enable the smallest minority to collect the maximum in rent. For sure, I'll never qualify for social housing, but I'd rather house lower income people in social housing at virtually no cost to the taxpayer than hand over money as RTB subsidies or as Housing Benefit and rent payments to private landlords.

3) That totally contradicts his opening claim. Who owns council housing and Housing Association housing? All of us, the whole nation, the "democracy" that's who. We all own a 1/62 millionth stake in it. So selling it off reduces the spread of ownership and concentrates it in fewer private hands, thus achieving the hidden agenda, see (2).

4) Woah! More DoubleThink on several fronts.

i) Quickest way to give people a bigger stake in the real economy is to cut taxes on what they actually earn and spend.

ii) Home-Owner-Ism's stated aim - to increase the spread of owner-occupation is in itself A Good Idea, you'd have to be heartless or blind not to agree - but what that means in practice is that there'll be fewer landlords collecting less in rent (which sounds a bit Socialist, which is why they never say it). Simply stampeding people into swapping high rental payments into high mortgage payments does not really change anything.

iii) When the Homeys say "a stake in our economic system" what they must mean is "a share in the total land rents", which ultimately can only be achieved by giving people... er... a share in the total land rents, i.e. a Citizen's Dividend/personal allowance funded out of a tax on the rental value of land. If that goes hand in hand with method (i) so much the better. You can't end slavery by allowing slaves to buy their own freedom.

"Thatcher riots rehearsal staged"

From the BBC:

A chaotic rehearsal of the riots to accompany Baroness Thatcher's funeral procession has taken place in central London.

More than 700 participants drawn from students, the unemployed and militant political organisations took part in the practice before dawn. They will line the route of the funeral procession from Westminster to St Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday.

Lady Thatcher's coffin is to be carried in a gun carriage drawn by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, which was involved in the rehearsal. Andy Chatburn, the man in charge of choreographing the riots, said the rehearsal "went completely haywire" and it was "vitally important" to stage a trial of Wednesday's event.

"Timings are most important," he said.

Andy Chatburn, events organiser for the LSE Students Union, who was also behind the riots which followed the royal wedding procession two years ago, added: "Bearing in mind these are students, the unemployed and hard core militants who have come in to do this specific task from their routine duties, so it's new to some of them. They need to see the ground as well so they can get a feel for how it's going to go and they can perform their duties with absolute recklessness on the day."

Today's entry in the history rewriting competition

From The Metro:

N Power was wrong by claiming [sic] that Baroness Thatcher wouldn't have suggested dancing on anyone's grave (Metro, Thu).

After the Argentine warship General Belgrano was sunk in the Falklands War with the loss of 323 lives, her response was 'Rejoice, rejoice'. It wouldn't be hard to argue that doesn't amount to pretty much the same thing.

David Jacob, Essex.

Strictly speaking, she said that when "our forces and the marines" raised the White Ensign over South Georgia:

The history re-writing competition is in full swing

From the FT:

Sir, It has been mentioned in a number of articles that Margaret Thatcher's greatest legacy (1) was in controlling inflation.

In 1980 inflation in the UK was 18 per cent and by 1986 it stood at 2 per cent. In France, under a socialist administration throughout the 1980s, the inflation rate in 1980 was 14 per cent and by 1986 it stood at 2 per cent.(2) Did Thatcher also help the French to reduce their inflation? (3)

David Peett, East Dean, West Sussex.

1) Yes, some people mention this, but the list of things which Thatcher allegedly achieved is very long indeed. So he's off to a poor start there.

2) This probably is true.

3) Clearly not. The Thatcherites would no doubt answer this with "yes", for them, her powers were virtually unbounded. Truth of the matter is that the fall in inflation was largely due to the end of currency controls in 1979 (and yes, we have Thatcher and whoever was her first Chancellor to thank for that). Of course, when the Thatcher government tried reintroducing currency controls (the ERM debacle) we had another short period of relatively high inflation.

UPDATE: Graeme in the comments reckons that the French simply adopted similar economic policies to those adopted in the UK. The Thatcherites will say "ah yes, that shows how influential she was" and the realists would say "well sod that, everybody was doing the same thing anyway".

Ironic really, what she actually meant to say was...

Blair: worried about his own funeral

From the BBC:

Tony Blair has criticised people who hold parties to "celebrate" the deaths of former Prime Ministers, saying they were in "pretty poor taste". The former Labour prime minister urged critics of him and his Conservative predecessors to "show some respect".

The comments come after parties took place in several cities to mark the death of a former Prime Minister who was even more divisive than Blair, although Blair himself seems to be in reasonably good health and the likelihood is that people will have more or less forgotten about him by the time he pegs it. Except for the bit about invading several countries for no particular reason.

A Labour source also said that leader Ed Miliband "categorically" condemned such behaviour, although the chances of him ever being a late former Prime Minister are a remote as the chances of him becoming Prime Minister in the first place.

Lady Thatcher is the number one hate figure for many on the left, having privatised several state-run industries and been involved in long run-ins with trade unions, most famously during the miners' strike of 1984-5. Rather ironically, Tony Blair is number two.

"The Fight For History"

"This is not a song taking delight from the prospect of anybody's death or illness, this is about the fight that will take place for the correct telling of history and the lasting implications of the Tory governments of 1979-1997."

Yeah right.

[Thatcher's Legacy] We want to own land! Give us money!

From The Guardian:

The level of fraud on mortgages and insurance policies has more than doubled since the start of the credit crunch, and the ongoing squeeze on household finances is likely to lead to more cases, a credit reference agency has claimed. Figures from Experian show that although the total rate of fraud on financial products has fallen since 2007, in certain areas there have been big increases in the number of false applications.

Its data shows that the rate of mortgage fraud increased to 38 cases in every 10,000 applications in 2012, up from 35 the previous year, and more than double the 18 cases per 10,000 recorded in 2007. Nine in 10 cases involved individuals painting a knowingly false picture of their personal circumstances on an application, with the most common action being an attempt to hide a poor credit history. False statements about the applicant's employment status or financial circumstances also featured.

Experian said mortgage fraud cases were highest among the social group made up of middle-aged, middle-class, and skilled working-class individuals.

"Budget 2013: £100,000 off right-to-lend on London homes"

From The Evening Standard:

Thousands of London mortgage salesmen will get a chance to lend money to London's higher earning social tenants to buy their homes under a major extension of the Right-to-Lend in tomorrow’s Budget, the Evening Standard reveals today.

George Osborne will raise to £100,000 the maximum incentive to persuade tenants in London to swap a secure tenancy at a low rent for five years of debt slavery during the lock-in period, after which they will be able to sub-let the home for a huge guaranteed profit or to sell it to an aspiring homeowner or BTL landlord who will have to take out an even larger mortgage.

One Council of Mortgage Lenders spokesman said it could "unleash a new generation of land-price speculation and mortgage lending in the capital". The rise, from £75,000, reflects the higher land rents of London property compared with other regions...

Mr Osborne has hailed Right-to-Sublet, which was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, as "one of the greatest trickle-up policies of all time. As The Daily Mirror pointed out recently, forty per cent of homes bought by tenants are now in the hands of landlords; and with prices as high as they are, it's difficult for banks to lend even more money on the existing housing stock."

It gives long-standing tenants a discount of up to 50 per cent if they buy their taxpayer-owned home from the taxpayer. Sources say David Cameron personally backed the move and pushed it through against feeble resistance from the Liberal Democrats who just don't get it.

Andrew Johnson, the business development spokesman for the British Bankers Association said: "A £100,000 discount could make the difference to thousands of hard-working London bankers who could not otherwise dream of lending social tenants hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s the time for the Chancellor to grab the Right-to-Rent bull by the horns and unleash a new generation of Home-Owner-Ism in the capital."

Six Right-to-Speculate sales have been completed in Hammersmith & Fulham since the discount nationwide was raised to £75,000 last year, with a further 37 awaiting completion. But a study last year found that discount was not enough for most financial service industry insiders and future BTL landlords.

Average house prices in London have reached £403,000 for the first time. It is 15 per cent above the £350,000 peak in January 2008 before the short-lived house price dip, which triggered a decade long financial recession.

Gordon Brown's gold-owning democracy

I've been emailed a link to this article, which reminds us that Brown decided to sell the bulk of the Bank of England's gold a while back, netting about £2.3 billion, and that had it been sold at today's prices, this would have netted about five times as much, so in theory, the taxpayer has made a 'loss' of £10 billion, or at least not made that amount of profit (which would by and large be just on paper if we just left it in the vaults).

Fair enough, Brown handled the sale badly by announcing it in advance, thus depressing the market price slightly, but I do wonder how many of those people who are whining now made the decision at the time to buy gold? And what is £10 billion in today's money? It's about five days' worth of public spending/waste, big deal.

Let's contrast that with the loss suffered by the taxpayer as a result of the council house sell-offs, which were deliberately and calculatingly far below market value. In round terms, let's call it two million units and a loss of £70,000 on each, that's a loss of £140 billion, so which you can add about £60 billion extra Housing Benefit paid to the owners of those units where the original purchaser had moved out, so the loss to the taxpayer is around £200 billion (big margin of error) i.e. twenty times as much as the notional loss on the gold sales, that's nearly three months' worth of public spending

Hmmm.

What this boils down to is that Brown made a huge mistake by presenting this as an economic decision, by which he sold the stuff at or close to market prices to private investors, rather than a political decision to create a "gold-owning democracy". Had he done a Thatcher and sold it at undervalue to a defined class of deserving UK investors, would people still be complaining like this? I know that I would - the fact I could kick myself for not having bought gold ten years ago (to match HM Treasury's sale thereof) is an entirely separate issue, but that was my decision.

Short Lists

Last week's sort of fizzled out in the end, despite all your fine suggestions, and it's still not quite clear to me what's on the final Short List and what isn't.

So just for fun (one of my favourite parlour games): who can name all the Ministers called "Norman" in Maggie Thatcher's and John Major's governments?

"Deeper and tougher than Margaret Thatcher"

A bit like Comment Is Free, but more delusional

There was a fine article in The Times a couple of days ago, which covered Housing Benefit, Right to Buy and social housing in one fell swoop. Well worth a read, I couldn't have summed it up better myself.

The fun bit is all the prejudices that people, mainly Home-Owner-ists, trot out in the comments. To give a couple of examples:

paul elliott wrote: And don't forget if [a private] landlord has a mortgage then he can claim tax relief on the interest effectively making his mortgage interest free.

Nope. He gets tax relief on the mortgage interest (to the extent his rental income exceeds his mortgage interest). So at best he will get his after-tax interest cost down by 20% or 40%.

Lin of London wrote: When is the underlying problem going to be admitted? The UK is overpopulated. We need to use our land to feed ourselves, not build millions of new houses. Stop immigration, return illegals and all foreign criminals and then assess the housing situation.

The UK is not overpopulated. We could be self-sufficient in food if push came to shove. Residential areas cover barely five per cent of the UK by surface area. Whether we build new homes or use existing homes more efficiently depends largely on whether there is more resistance to liberalising planning laws or to shifting from taxing incomes to taxing property values. Ah .. right, both. So f*** future generations. I agree on immigration, but this is a minor and separate issue.

george scoresby wrote: This is such a historically ignorant analysis of "right to buy." Millions of Britons, in a relationship of serfdom to their local authority housing masters, escaped this dependency, and took on the maintenance of their properties themselves, thereby reducing local authority housing management costs. The policy also increased social mobility so the country could grow.

Why serfdom? I happen to rent privately, am I a serf to my landlord as well? In economic terms, yes, and probably more so than a social tenant who is paying a far lower rent. This f***wit claims that the lucky right-to-buyers reduced local authority housing management costs - that was the whole point of the article - right-to-buy increased local authority housing costs and hence the cost to the taxpayer (that's you and me, by the way). Right-to-buy may have 'increased social mobility' for the lucky few who bought their council house at undervalue, sat out the biggest property price boom ever and either sold it or are now renting it back to the council for five or ten times what they were paying in rent two decades ago, but that seems like an expensive way of achieving social mobility to me.

There are dozens of Home-Owner-Ist nuggets to wade through, more anon.

Another reader's letter of the day

From the FT:

Sir, Gideon Rachman’s article on the closing of the Thatcher era (April 28) makes an interesting claim that "Thatcherism has lost the moral high ground" on the basis that the link between "virtuous effort and just reward" has been destroyed through the likes of Sir Fred Goodwin.

Surely the lesson of the last decade could equally be drawn from the spectacle of the British people living beyond their means, encouraged by ever-rising house prices and fuelled by excessive borrowing bestowed on them by improperly regulated banks.

All this with the tacit approval of a government that viewed unsustainable debt-fuelled growth as the end of "boom and bust" and a means to finance excessive public spending, apparently without pain or consequence. A "something for nothing" society, surely?

Time to rediscover "traditional values", methinks.

Aidan Clegg, Cobham, Surrey, UK.

Tax cuts

I am not Margaret Thatcher's biggest fan, but her mantra "you can't have economic stability without tax cuts" is brilliant.