Are our views always entrenched?

Flats in former warehouses in Manchester sell for upwards of £500,000 so the rich obviously don't mind them!
What about my suggestion about requisitioning under-used holiday homes?
Prefabs were very acceptable little homes - several of my friends lived in them and I really envied them.

Come on....own up! Who suggested ghettoes? Where did you read that, *granjura?'

Why should decently renovated buildings be a barrier simply because they were once inadequate or derelict? I live in what was a two up, two down tied cottage, with outside toilet and a tin bath in the chicken's outhouse. It's not like that now. It was done up!

So why not build prefabs and offer them to people who are in houses that are too big for them? Don't call them prefabs, though, call then high-tech flat-pack housing.

Why not turn office blocks into blocks of flats in the centre of town or near it?

Why not get initiatives going to partner industrialists looking for charitable kudos with councils in need of more suitable housing stock?

Why not read posts and see what viable suggestions others have made instead of just repeating your own posts and assuming that everyone else has said "F* the familes, do nothing about anything?"

Elegran - yes we know, there are too few, and perhaps none, smaller houses, bungalows and suitable low-rise flats - this has been agreed umpteen times. Which is why we have to look at urgent solutions, a whole variety - including a building programme, and as said on the news last night, re-furbishing empty properties, etc.

But the suggestion that families in bedsit should be sent to live in ghettos in old industrial estates and office buildings- is hard to take.

Are you really saying families should live in pre-fabs and ex industrial buildings on brown field sites - whilst older people (NOT elderly) should stay in over-large council houses with gardens? And you call that fair, emphatic and caring?

I meant alternative, my pedant pals!

granjura this thread is peppered with suggestions of alternate ways of dealng with the problem of insufficient housing. I'm puzzled that you say no-one is coming up with suggestions.

Glad your friend is happy with her tiny bungalow and tiny garden. Many people in 2 or 3 bedroom council houses or high rise flats would also be happy, if they could just find such a thing. They can't afford to buy one and there are none to rent.

But we have made suggestions - prefabs, empty office blocks, empty houses, emergency housebuilding programmes, etc. Here is another one - during the war houses were requisitioned for evacuees - perhaps holiday homes that are hardly ever used could requisitioned for homeless families.

I meant my fried is very happy about her tiny bungalow with a tiny garden..

You are obviously not listening. I've said again and again that the present system is unfair, rushed, poorly thought out and unworkable. I totally agree that most people on benefits totally deserve empathy and support, and yet have had to listen to friends and relatives who live on council estates that I live in cloud cuckoo land, and that a far too big proportion are on the make in what way or another. I found it hard to believe- but they told me I was an utopian leftie, and didn't have a clue. so I get it from both sides, hurrah.

So entrenched views - all I am saying that even if the current Tory stupid system and ideas are wrong and unfair- it does NOT mean that we, all, irrespective of left or right, have to urgently think of intelligent and fair solutions. BTW we always shared 1 lounge with our lodgers, and 1 bathroom, that is for sure. Not all people find the idea of sharing a bathroom totally disgusting and abhorent. For SOME people, and carefully supported (yes it costs, but the savings would more than cover for this), it would be an excellent situation. For SOME. For others, a move to a community based estate made up of low-rise flats of bungalows, with communal gardens and proper infrastructure, will be another for SOME- and there may well be other good ideas and schemes that would suit others- so we better put our empathetic thinking caps on soonish.

An emphatic Soviet style NIET to any sensible and caring solutions is showing just that, entrenched views that will get us nowhere. Entrenched views are certainly not only on the right.

I wonder if my wonderful friend an neighbour who lives in a tiny post war council bungalow is not so happy about the situation, and feels it would be totally wrong for them to have extra bedroom/s for visiting relatives, is that she comes from France. Where all people in social housing are hoarded like cattle in high-rise flats in sink estates without proper infrastructure stuck on the edges of town- same for Germany, and most of Europe btw. Awful, and I've always been so proud about how much the UK system is-

I've been told over and over how unfair it would be for older people now finding themselves with 2 spare bedrooms (on average) to have to move. Agreed. But NOT ONE, NOT A SINGLE ONE - has come up with any solutions for the 1000s of families who have to live in bedsits and b&bs, now, this very moment. And this from people who have said many a time that large families should be supported and nurtured, as they are our future.

So, I am waiting. Please, tell me what to do with them- and how fair it is for them to live in such dreadful conditions.

BTW Greatnan, when I said life is not fair- it was not complaining. It was saying that although the fabulous uk welfare system was to provide nets and care, it was never about bringing about equality as such.

For a very long time, we in the UK have totally unfairly benefited from the 'brain drain' from third world countries. Doctors, nurses, business people, etc. So yes, i totally agree that the most wealthy should be taxed fairly and more proportionally than others, absolutely. But not to the extent that in this global economy we lose our most talented and able.

Money for welfare needs to come from somewhere - and those who escape to tax havens will not provide. Here in Switzerland we see 100s of young people from the UK arriving all the time - fed up with being taxed to the bone, and with much higher salaries and prospects here. It used to be a few a year - it is a deluge now. Good riddance - well yes - perhaps, but their taxes will certainly no longer go to the coffers to pay for the NHS, welfare, education. Others are off to Singapour, Hong Kong, or even ... Monaco. wherever they feel they are not being fleeced.

So, I''l keep trying to see all sides, trying to find fair ways to progress, and keep getting in the neck from some relatives for being an utopian and raving Leftie, and from some of you for being an uncaring and raving Tory (and I've always been a lot closer to the former than the latter).

I think Elegran is on to something. Rowntree , bournville, lever all built houses for workers. What about all the money Branson wants to spend on trips to outer space , Trump on golf courses they could spend it on subsidised housing for the lower paid. Perhaps they don't want to because they had little education or opportunity themselves and had truckloads of ambition and think people should make their own wealth.. I don't know about Clore, what his background was.

Am I being a bit subtle with my irony? (Not usually known for subtlety!) I am saying that penalising any individual by forcing them out of their homes, when they have acquired them legally and settled there, is usually unfair and divisive. Sometimes, of necessity, and with offers of compensation, cooperation is needed. But....don't pick on the poor, who are less able to defend themselves, and if it doesn't work by taking away the homes of the wealthy, why on earth would the impact on the poor be acceptable?

Only by telling ourselves that the poor don't deserve what others have, can the powers that be justify to themselves that it is ok to penalise anyone in a council house who now finds themself with an 'extra' bedroom. Reducing homes down to the notion of just being bricks and mortar denies what it means to have security and familiarity.

I think several good suggestions have been made, none of which involve treating social tenants as less worthy of privacy and dignity.
The current legislation is not a carrot - people have no choice but to pay the extra rent even though it is not possible for them to find smaller accommodation.
Most three or two bedroomed council houses do not lend themselves to taking in a stranger - for people who own their own larger houses, it might be easier, for example they might have more than one living space and bathroom.
Most people who have not bought their own homes or built up a nice pension pot are not useless scroungers - they simply did not have the necessary education, health, or good fortune to be able to earn enough to do those things. I think people who have been able to do so, either by their own efforts or inheritance, should be grateful that they had the chance, and stop ranting on about how unfair life is. It must be hard enough to be dependent on benefits of any kind, without being made to feel guilty. Didn't somebody mention empathy on another thread - I call it compassion.

What a very good idea, Elegran. It's been done before, so why not again? How to encourage the well-heeled to do this, though? I'd rather not live in Trump Towers, though....!

Meant to say 'then When.

Did it not work the When? I think Marie Antionette, Csar Nicholas, et al might have felt a touch deprived!

Very comfortably off. Living in one of the wealthiest nations on Earth.

Sheesh!

Another point rising from your last – from what you've told us of your lifestyle, you do not seem to have suffered from not inheriting wealth from your parents. That is your real bugbear and what you feel is unfair, isn't it?

Most people in the world don't inherit money from their parents. Those who do are damn lucky. The rest just get one with life, as you did, and verysuccessfully too by the sound of it. What have you to complain about really?

jura, you keep asking questions that have already been answered.

This: "So what are you going to do with all the families living in bedsits and b&bs? Leave them there to rot. That is fair - you tell me."

What needs to be done is to build more homes. This has been said on this thread more than once. I think you need to stop ranting and read the thread properly.

Nobody has said that "leaving people to rot" (which nobody condones except after death and burial – silly, OTT phrase) is fair. But housing people in B&Bs, though not satisfactory in the long term, is better than leaving them on the street as happened commonly in earlier, less enlightened times.

I know there are still homeless people, but families in the UK will be housed somehow or other.

The wealthy could gain some Brownie points by sponsoring new-build housing and donating it to the local authorities. Their names could be above the entrances to commemorate their generosity, like Peabody Buildings in Victoria's reign.

We could see Branson Buildings, Trump Towers, Clore Cottages.

Would it be frivolous of me to suggest Virgin Flatlets for Single Mothers?

Exactly, aka. If it didn't work on the wealthy, why pick on the poor?

I'm sure other GNutters can put me right.

I'm no historian When but hasn't this already been tried? French and Russian Revolutions, China?