Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mr. Cairo]

Ugh, I didn't know about the rebate, that actually is pretty criminal.

EDIT: Equating Thatcher with Reagan always struck me as pretty shallow. Thatcher came to power to what was near enough a communist country -- all major industries nationalised, almost all banking was done on a "building society" basis,  a lot of financial activities were actually criminalized  (for example, international trading in UK sovereign debt), and 42% of people lived in council housing. Thatcher's reforms weren't aimed at curtailing things like free healthcare or free education, or even housing construction, they were aimed at taking Britain closer to what's understood today as a "normal" welfare state -- a market economy with a supportive government. For example, Thatcher government continued to build over 17k council properties per year -- for comparison, Labour then built less than 8k in thirteen years.

Oh I know that the comparison is pretty shallow, but Thatcher was certainly influenced by Reaganomics, which is all I really meant by it.

And yes New Labour wasn't all that different

[Mardoc]

So I realize people are mad about the money, but from what I've read this is much more a matter of incompetence/indifference.  The most egregious thing was that they told the residents to shelter in place in the event of a fire, instead of running evacuation drills (or even simply doing nothing).  That alone is responsible for a lot of the death.  Quite a number of the flaws in the building were from the original construction in the 70's, too, like having only one fire escape.   It seems like there was plenty of money floating around, getting spent on all sorts of things that were supposed to be for the residents but didn't actually benefit them, because the people with the purse strings either didn't care or didn't have a clue.

Even though they cheaped out on the materials, they still spent 8-9 million pounds on the latest renovation (and I feel confident they met their 'environmental efficiency' goal, at least technically).  It sounds like they managed to make things objectively worse for the residents in the process, worse than if they'd not even tried.

It seems to me that they could have gotten a lot more good done, with a lot less cash, if they'd focused on the residents instead of on the 'housing'.  Reading the Wikipedia article, I see pretty much all the construction and later renovations were done to meet central government mandates, not because the people involved wanted them.  First they tore down the 'substandard housing in Notting Dale' and packed people into the tower instead, in order to create green space and 'piazza', while neglecting to build the offices and shopping centers in the plan.  Later they restricted access to the flats to try to cut crime, added the cladding to meet energy efficiency requirements, packed more people in to meet 'affordable housing targets' - common theme was a central plan by an impartial expert that's definitely going to fix all the problems this time.

If my casual googling is right, there were 140 families in the tower; 8 million/140 would have been 57K/family.  That could have replaced all their appliances (preventing the fire), paid for a lot of heating, sponsored some full-ride scholarships to university, and still had a lot of money left over to, say, paint the outside instead of mounting cladding and still give taxpayers a refund.

The US approach of 'just give people vouchers toward rent' (section 8 housing) seems a lot better at having the money we spend actually get used in a way that benefits people.  Not perfect, but in a 'not as good as it could be' sense, not 'actively spent money to make things worse' sense.

I don't see how the Grenfell situation is any better if the council had been unable to refund to taxpayers, they clearly had no ability to spend money in a useful manner.  They'd have just blown it on something else unrelated to making people better off.

[Commodore]

What are these "taxpayers" you speak of? Nobody involved in this imbroligio was remotely related to a taxpayer. "The People" are just the ones paying for this massive barracks of their masters' imported demographic shock troops  (I believe Blair gleefully said the purpose was to "rub their noses in it"). What about any of this would make you think safety was a concern for anyone in charge?

Please note, I have nothing but pity for the tower inhabitants. There is nothing more miserable than leaving the third world and discovering that the third world is actually something you bring with you.

[Krill]

The US approach of 'just give people vouchers toward rent' (section 8 housing) seems a lot better at having the money we spend actually get used in a way that benefits people.  Not perfect, but in a 'not as good as it could be' sense, not 'actively spent money to make things worse' sense.

Housing benefit, which can be used to pay rent towards council rent or private rent, already exists. You are confusing a land lords responsibility towards housing quality and safety to that of a local councils responsibility to ensure people have access to housing of any sort. The former they fucked up, but that has nothing do with the latter. Was

[Mardoc]

What are these "taxpayers" you speak of? Nobody involved in this imbroligio was remotely related to a taxpayer. "The People" are just the ones paying for this massive barracks of their masters' imported demographic shock troops  (I believe Blair gleefully said the purpose was to "rub their noses in it").

Please note, I have nothing but pity for the tower inhabitants. There is nothing more miserable than leaving the third world and discovering that the third world is actually something you bring with you.

I don't understand.  Blair wasn't even around in the 70's when they first built the place.  The UK has never needed immigrants to make the distinction between master/servant and ruler/subject quite clear.  And surely if this were a dark plot to gain non-English votes, the most important thing would be keeping the voters alive so they can still vote?  Perhaps adding in just enough spending to make them grateful but keep them dependent, instead of flashy disasters that might make them angry/scared enough to work on being independent?

It's one thing to posit villainy, another to posit brilliant Machiavellian idiots.

What about any of this would make you think safety was a concern for anyone in charge?

Well, nothing, obviously.  I'm not convinced anything was a concern other than 'look at my budget, I'm spending a lot of money and meeting National Goals therefore I'm important'.

[Mardoc]

Housing benefit, which can be used to pay rent towards council rent or private rent, already exists. You are confusing a land lords responsibility towards housing quality and safety to that of a local councils responsibility to ensure people have access to housing of any sort.

Wait, what?  This makes me question if I even understand the definitions of the words in a UK context.

For starters: Why would anyone live in a place like Grenfell if they weren't directly subsidized for living there, presumably with free or greatly reduced rent, and no other options?

Second:  why would you have two schemes, one which pays the other?  The US used to have 'the projects', which were government provided housing for the poor, but we've pretty much stopped doing that and switched to section 8, where we trust that people want money and will build apartments for rent if that's the only way to get their hands on the money.  Generally quality control is done the same way as any other housing, with the primary driver being 'people will leave' and the secondary one being building codes / building inspectors. About the only US public-owned housing I know about are university dorms and military bases.

Third:  How can you have a voucher toward rent and be unable to find anyone willing to rent to you?  Unless the benefit is ridiculously small, so it doesn't actually cover rent?  Is the UK devoid of greedy bastards? If it's ridiculously small, does it matter if it exists?

Fourth:  if 'council housing' isn't subsidized, where does "used it as a rebate in an attempt to buy the vote of the constituents that needed it the least" come from?

[Krill]

To be blunt, unless you have knowledge of the UK housing market and social state, I'd hang fire on moral judgements regarding people's decisions of where to live. It gets complicated.

[Mardoc]

To be blunt, unless you have knowledge of the UK housing market and social state, I'd hang fire on moral judgements regarding people's decisions of where to live. It gets complicated.

Wasn't aiming for moral judgment on anyone but the landlord (who doesn't appear to be who I assumed it was), although I guess I can see how that might have been inferred from what I posted. Was trying to back off to a 'what is' level once I realized my 'what should be' was based on a pile of US-based assumptions.

I'm not sure I even understand what 'councils' are, even. I'd assumed they were a similar level of government as towns and cities but maybe they're corporations instead? Or something even weirder?

[rho21]

In the UK we have both the systems you mentioned previously: there is housing benefit available, to be spent on accommodation available to rent on the open market. It's usually enough to get an OK house, though that varies by where you are living. You can also put yourself on the waiting list for a "council house" (i.e. social housing owned by the state).

People often prefer a council house to private renting for a number of reasons including long-term stability, the difficulty of finding somewhere to rent, having to deal with letting agents, bigoted landlords, that sort of shit. Possibly also relevant is the right-to-buy scheme, which aims to let people who have been long-term council house residents purchase their houses at a significant subsidy.

The councils we're talking about are indeed local government (for a city borough, a city or part of a county). They are responsible for allocation and maintenance of council houses in their area. The stock varies greatly, from semi-detached houses to tower blocks. There's never as much of it as needed, and it's mostly a bit run down due to limited maintenance budgets and the fact that much of the stock is getting old and not enough more is being made.

Obviously there are centralized standards for safety, amount of space required per adult and child in the family, that sort of thing. Equally obviously, councils without much money will cut as many corners as possible within these restrictions - the same is true of private landlords within their own set of regulations, of course.

[Bacchus]

Equally obviously, councils without much money will cut as many corners as possible within these restrictions

But clearly the Royal Borough is not one of these councils.

For starters: Why would anyone live in a place like Grenfell if they weren't directly subsidized for living there, presumably with free or greatly reduced rent, and no other options?

You normally don't get to choose social housing, you request placement in a particular council area, and a property is offered to you once it's available. As you can imagine, there are queues, especially for families with specific requirements, such as a large number of bedrooms. You are free to look for alternatives on the market, but that's more expensive. Yeah, the government effectively gives two types of benefit for the same thing -- govt-constructed and govt-owned houses at subsidised rent, and an actual subsidy to the rent, which can be used to subsidise already subsidised rent in a govt-owned house.

where we trust that people want money and will build apartments for rent if that's the only way to get their hands on the money

Of course, that's all hunky-dory until you take zoning into account. In large cities, people don't build as many apartments as are required, they build only as many as are zoned, the sector is in permanent deficit. If there is an unsatisfied demand for expensive flats, how do you force people to build cheap ones? They are actually trying a number of approaches: for example, in London, a certain percentage of any newly built residential property must be dedicated to "affordable housing". But councils already own a whole bunch of land -- so rather than privatise it, and then try to incentivize construction of what you need, why not just do it directly? Southwark, my council, owns nearly half of the land it governs (not representative, Southwark Council is one of the largest landlords in the country), so of course it builds on it to try and house people, whilst privatizing blocks in areas which are gentrifying.

How can you have a voucher toward rent and be unable to find anyone willing to rent to you?

The UK tries to not have people on the edge of desperation, so it's not that people are unable to find rent, they choose to apply to council housing knowing that they can receive a double-subsidy. Which is pretty lucrative, as market rates are high -- even somewhere like Leeds (what would you compare it to? Cleveland? Pittsburg?) a two bed in a pretty average block would set you back about 1kUSD per month.


Fourth: if 'council housing' isn't subsidized, where does "used it as a rebate in an attempt to buy the vote of the constituents that needed it the least" come from?

The council in question actually gave a rebate -- here, have some money back.