Friday 13 April 2007

former angels

Working class conservatism has been pushed aside by: the ending of apprenticeship systems that provided hands-on teaching in skilled trades; the extension of university -style teaching and qualification to inappropriate occupations; the denial of fiscal support to family structures (whoever, by gender, or culture, or generation is filling the roles that families need to offer to create safe worlds for children to become adults); the collapse of community as housing has become an investment opportunity in the face of staggering taxation levels, even confiscatory acts, on any other kind of private saving; and the determined, ideological assault of the 'trotskyoid' left on the idea of the family as one of the bases of social cohesion and co-operation.

It is easy to disrupt and control dysfunctional, poorly managed, marginalised families; but the assault on the the families of skilled working people and their communities that has been going on for all these decades from the ideological left was failing until globalisation wrecked their economic validity.

The Labour party under Brown is determined to further the statism and fragmentation that results in easier social control even though it is sufficiently ashamed of its purposes to refuse to declare its policies. There is little hope if the Brownite faction cannot be replaced with something that opposes these ends.

The Conservatives have a reservoir of support that has deep roots and can be called out if policies that sustain family, qualification, social mobility, and reasonable aspiration to home and community are offered.

13 comments:

Newmania said...

Well thus far HG you are speaking Newmania-ese by the bucketload. I have made some of these points in my coarse and untutored way many times.
The housing markets development has also reinforced societal fragmentation by making comprehensives into wealth ghettos or poverty traps

Arthurian Legend said...

So Hatfield Girl, why aren't you a conservative (or Conservative)?

What is it about being "right of centre" (to use a term that you somewhat justifiably consider confusing/redundant) that you consider to be wrong?

Newmania said...

I `m curious

hatfield girl said...

Would that I had the gift of Newmania-ese.

The failure to help house the new generations except by private provision when some, and important parts of, the means are social and collective has led to the physical degeneration and housing inadequacy of London.

Harold MacMillan built houses, whole towns and refurbished city areas of them; private companies built too. But why are we all trying to cram ourselves into the provision of over half a century ago?

I want a Ministry of Housing. Answerable to the voters.

Now.

hatfield girl said...

On being a Conservative, that depends on time and space. When are we, and where are we. Certainly I approve of post second War Conservativism. Otherwise this blog would not be named as it is.

How can I know now if I am told nothing of policy on taxation levels, housing policy, welfare provision, public education, fiscal and monetary stance, foreign policy, and attitude to ecological issues, (in no particular order). Why are we left in fog? Where am I in this globalised century?

Right of centre? As EK indicated, the centre is wobbling and hard to pin down. If the centre cannot hold it's time to whip it into shape.

Newmania said...

If only Yeats had had your thrilling need for action HG. His feeble effort ( as you will know) was ...
..the centre cannot hold;...Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, Blah blah blah
You are so much more thrillingly decisive , I enjoyed that.” whip it into shape “.worthy of “The lady” herself
I wrestle with dark suspicions about your evasiveness politically though I do not need David Cameron to tell me I am a Conservative, he needs me to tell what such a thing is and then get on with it. Never mind I am resolved to like you whatever horrifying secrets must finally be revealed…:)
.As you would expect ,I`m a bit dubious about a Ministry of housing or indeed the supposition that state hirelings ever improve anything. Not that I have noticed recently Half a century ago state managed expenditure was even greater as a proportion of GDP than it is now (45%). Your suggestion that a return to Post War top Down Ministry solution is...not to my taste .There are lots of houses we demolish as many as we build it is where the jobs are and where the State hands out our money and much more that make up a dynamic system . A Ministry would make everything worse and it would be expensive .

To any question the correct answer is never more bureaucrats. I have some ideas but it’s a bit late

Raedwald said...

Congrats on the blog! Wonderful!

The crux of the housing problem in London is clear if you look at your borough's stats on the ONS site; it's not that there aren't enough houses, it's because too few people are living in them. In my borough 32% of dwellings are occupied by single people - and many of these dwellings are 2/3 bed Victorian/Edwardian terraces. Older couples whose kids have flown the nest still live in their 4 bed semis.

A Ministry of Housing would be a truly Stalinist / Brownite solution; it would undoubtedly bring in tax penalties for under-occupied dwellings (e.g. as a measure of fiscal control, swapping the 25% discount for sole occupation of a 2-bed house for a 25% surcharge).

The problem with housing isn't 'market failure' - and market failure is arguably the ONLY valid reason for govt. economic intervention - but social trends. The decline of extended families, the Bridget Jones society and all of that.

And it's IMO another home goal; as a centralist Welfare State has sought to replace the role of the family since the 1950s, it has actually created this problem.

hatfield girl said...

In calling for a Ministry of Housing what I would like is to have ministries that deal with real things, not more bureaucracy. Why is it so difficult to access policies and the process of formulating policies?

Urban regeneration is a long process with myriad inputs but no clear, elected, responsible body that orchestrates it all. This is true of other governmental roles too. There isn't just a fragmentation policy for families, but for choosing and answerability on even the minimal state activity desirable.

There cannot be no town planning at all; why is it so hard to find out, and to contribute to it?

During the eighties large swathes of Birmingham Victorian terraces were renovated under city-wide direction and the people living there had their lives transformed; it needed the City and the then Conservative government to co-ordinate, and help with organising the finance, and cajole all the different owners etc.,but it was a good example of what could be done when there is benign bureaucratic assistance to private demand.

Thank you for the congrats. I will look at Camden's stats.

Newmania said...

Possibly HG but the first question should not be what layers of authority do we add but what are we doing that is actually making it worse that we might prune.
1 Withholding vast tracts of property from the market and giving it away on a means tested basis. Start selling it off soon. This would solve a lot more problems and there are a few idea floating about for this one of which will almost certainly be in both Party`s lists . Stop building more of it ! The improvements made to Islington by the Leaseholder scheme now have to be “ Put right “by another 11000 unwanted social housing units when we already have about 60 % in ghettoes and on benefits .
Leaseholder are pursued with naked doctrinal hatred by the scum Hodge detritus still infesting the Coucil and the housing industry

Incidentally the mechanism by which this is ordered is a great demonstration of the evils of further administrative layers . Council , GLA , Prescott and ultimately the Town and Country Planning Act.
Who do you vote against ..we know why they make it hard to see do we not
2 Remove Stamp duty that clearly gums up the market and is incidentally a disgusting piece of state robbery on the aspiration highway. Ability to move would help some of the regional divergence that we agree is a growing concern. Actually its hard to think of a tax I hate more
3 Your example of bureaucratic assistance to private demand is interesting . Councils and their developer friends have not been a universal succes ( COUGH SPLUTTER) and it is utterly pointless to mention occasions when they have . All statist solutions founder on their hermetically sealed view of the way the world works and yet this is always going to be a necessary crony meeting point
Key workers might not have been quite such a stupid idea if the scheme wasn`t habitually defrauded and misused ..for example. Why do the left assume good intentions and honesty from their commisarrs and slave but noone else,? The reverse is more likely.
Some of the housing problems are unavoidable and are just long term effects of the post war development of personal finance social organisation and property owning . As the market and its entrants reach a stable point it will right itself. It is a mistake to assume there is a solution for everything and " something must be done" leads to ," Well this is something so we had better do it ". Leave it alone ... Is part of the answer

Town planning is obviously required but not when it is used to impose socialist serf creation agendas in inner cities. I would accept that the market cannot be unregulated but I think we need to build on the Green belt

WHY should we live in boxes just so the middle-classes can enjoy their picnics ?

Ha ha ha ha HG you secret is out reread your exchange with Raedwald. Its all there ( neighbour)

Raedwald said...

I've got the stats here:-

CAMDEN
Total population - 188,724
No. of dwellings - 93,114
No. of One person households - 42,217
%age of 1 person dwellings - 45%

ISLINGTON
Total population - 172,262
No. of dwellings - 83,244
No. of one person households - 36,305
%age of 1 person dwellings - 43%

Dwellings and households are for all practical purposes synonymous in ONS terms - the differences are very slight.

So in Camden, 22% of the population occupies 45% of the dwellings.

Sounds like more of a case for a Ministry of Dating than for a Ministry of Housing - if you're looking for a statist solution [G]

Raedwald said...

Sorry to come back on this, but the occupancy rating (dataset UV59) also gives the number of 'surplus' rooms. (A single person is deemed to need three rooms).

In Camden, 18,257 dwellings have one 'spare' room and a further 17,094 have two or more 'spare' rooms - that's about 39% of dwellings that are under-occupied.

By contrast, about 30% of Camden's dwellings are classed as overcrowded - have too few rooms.

It wouldn't happen under Stalin.

Newmania said...

Thats is interesting Raedwald. I wonder where HG has gone

hatfield girl said...

Thank you Raedwald for the statistics which are very helpful.

I was just about to post on Housiness. But was thrown in at the deep end by Newmania's post on his blog and then I read all the blogs of the people who were saying hello.

ps Housiness is next to Truthiness (cf Croydonian).

I'm no statist, as I stated.

I would like the Ministry for War to be the Ministry for War, not Defence. I wouldn't mind a Ministry for Peace, either. I would like the Ministry of Housing to be called just that. Democractically answerable power is being drained off into curiously named bodies with obscure remits constituted by appointment and with all the money.

It's hard to get it all out at once.