Are our views always entrenched?

I applaud anyone who has overcome a background/childhood that has been stifled in such a way as to leave them with entrenched, naive or unfairly prejudiced views. So, if a 'toff' recognises the unfair advantage they were given through no fault of ther own, and tries to rise above it by helping others less fortunate, they have my respect. I have no respect for the 'old boy network' who manoeuvre themselves into positions of power so they can continue to feather their own and each other's nests. Wealthy politicians should look closer to home before they think about turfing the less fortunate out of their's.

Here is the quote:

There is nothing anybody could tell me that would make me view this bunch of rich, privileged and selfish Old Etonians in any good light.

Read between the lines, and the many previous posts stating more or less the same thing.

You didn't use the word toffs - but how close can one get, and this is not the first time. Children in Public schools are no more responsible for their choice of education as kids from an Estate in a sink inner-city school. And we all know how some of them suffered terribly - sent to boarding school aged 5 and abused and beaten by older pupils and masters. I wouldn't call this a privilege. So, I totally disagree with the politics of the present Government, but disagree on fact and deeds, not prejudice for their background, please. Prejudice is just as bad whichever side it comes from in my book.

Bags, it is possible to share a large house in very imaginative ways - and I won't go into detail here. But our house is shared by so many from the community, and this Summer with children from under-privileged homes, and from next September as a Youth and Homework club. And that is great- our choice though, I agree.

So glad I have been planting tomatoes and tidying the greenhouse for the last hour or so. We are getting into the "you said/she said" phase of this thread, always a boring part.

Glad too that Granjura agrees that incentives work better than disincentives, and that everyone thinks that the housing situation needs a shake-up.

Having checked in to Gn I am now going to get something to eat, and to open a mysterious parcel that a neighbour took in while I was out yesterday. I remembering ordering something but I can't for the life of me remember what.

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

The only person who mentioned toffs was Juragran - I don't know why she did so as nobody else had said it.
Nobody has said that people should not be rewarded for hard work either.
I am glad you think all the cabinet are doing a good job, Moved, but obviously the vast majority of the electorate do not agree with you. I have just been watching Sky news and the 'Doing a good job' rating of all three party leaders is below 30%, I think. Are you really happy with Gove and Osborne, etc? I hope you are not relying on entrenched thinking!
Do you have any opinion on some of the suggestions for finding housing for the homeless - it is becoming desperately hard to get anyone to give one!

It would be interesting to hear some views on the various suggestions we have put forward. I can't see the relevance to how hard somebody had to work - we have, I hope, all agreed that not everybody has the capacity, health or talent to have a high earning career - and not everybody wants one. There are plenty of dedicated people who work their socks off in the caring professions for very little pay. They won't become home owners or have a large pension, but they are no less valuable to society than the high fliers - in fact, some are probably more valuable than certain tycoons I could mention.
What about my suggestion about holiday homes - it seems hard to have them standing empty for most of the year when families need them. They are not all out in the sticks.
I don't know what more we can do to show that there are alternatives to forcing people to move or be financially punished when they can't - it would be nice if they were considered and debated.
Being labelled right or left wing is irrelevant - what matters is finding a solution that is not just a way of punishing people for something they can't help.

I've been having fun for the last 24 hours so have only just caught up with this thread but have some random thoughts:

Life is not fair - is there anything more true?

I think there already is a Trump Towers in New York but it is not social housing

No one seems to have responded to bluebell about the profit on selling a house, any house. I think that would be very hard to implement as it would be along the same lines as selling anything else on which you have made a profit, antique jewellery for example. There are already two property taxes: almost everyone who sells a house buys another one and the more they pay for that house the more tax they pay for the privilege of buying it; if they have a very expensive house then they will pay IHT on it as well after their death.

It is not quite as clear cut as some perhaps think that those who can afford buy and those who can't rent. Think of the well known union leaders who live in social housing. My MiL would have loved to buy a house but DiL had a horror of debt and always refused although they could have managed to pay for a small house. When right to buy came in we tried to convince him to buy but he stood firm - no debt. He was far from alone on his council estate. Many of us never considered applying for a council house as they were only for people with lots of 'points' which we understood to mean having been on the list for many years and with children. Since then single people have been given social housing which may have contributed to the shortage. Of course this is historical and things may be different now.

Just looked up 'rant' and one explanation is "To speak aggressively about something" and I don't think granjura did that, nor do I think such comments help a reasoned debate.

I don't find talk of 'toffs' or 'Old Etonians' particularly helpful. Presumably such people were elected because the voters in their constituencies thought they were the best candidates and any of them promoted to the cabinet be there because their leader believed they would do the job better than any of the others. On the whole we get the government we deserve.

I think we all have the choice to spend whatever we have in any way we choose whether that be to pay for our children's education, pay for medical care, go on cruises, go to the football, pub or theatre. There is no shame in having worked hard and achieved much as there is no shame in having worked hard and not achieved so much. The only shame is in not having tried. It is self evident that those who earn more have more choices but I wouldn't vilify them for that. I think it is a shame to make the comparisons.

Elegran if you read my recent posts, it should be clear that I advocate incentives and compensation, the carrot rather than the stick. Totally agree with you.

Bags I live in a massive old house, in the boonies where there are no jobs, no infrastucture- lots of mountains and trees, cows and manure heaps. But we've bought it with the sweat of our hard work- it was the price of a 2 up-2-down terrasse in Leicester - and is out of the equation.

As said, life is not fair. If you are suggesting that we should all be equal and live in the same size house, etc, then we need to go back to Old soviet Union or DDR. We could argue the pros and cons, and having lived for a while in East Berlin, there are many there who yearn to go back to the old system, and I understand them. But this is not what we are talking about, is it? Now I'd be very happy to discuss if it is fair or not fair that some professionals and business people earn more than others- but again this is not the purpose of this thread, or is it? Fact is, we are not all the same - and many people I know who have built businesses and reached professional status DO NOT COME FROM PRIVILEGED BACKGROUNDS - ask Lord Sugar, and so many of the NHS and private consultants. As said before, people like my OH who have suffered great hardship get there by seer determination and hard work - without a bean to live on, sacrificing all to get there. Others with the same brains and opportunities (or lack of) do not - they make a different choice. Like my brother, same parents, same bringing-up, same opportunities, more intelligent- he went a different way. Why do some people want to work and succeed and others not - a hugely complicated issue- but to say that all who succeed come from privileged backgrounds, and that all who do not succeed, are totally not responsible for their choices, is just not correct. OH worked 130+ hours per week for several years when we were first married - and even at the end of his career worked a minimum of 90- so don't begrudge him his old farmhouse in the sticks. Many retirees move to FRance because property out in the sticks is so cheap. A 4 bed + barns and workshops and a huge amount of land in the Dordogne for sale for 185.000 Euros if you are interested

I cannot see how it is considered uncaring to suggest that flats in town centres and old industrial mills would be more suitable for older and younger people - and that families should have priority on houses with gardens.

Spoilt that nice epigram by typing treacle instead of vinegar! Should have gone off and done something else when I first meant to!

On rereading the posts on here, I would say that the main difference between my vies and Juragrans is that she advocates disincentives to stay and I would use incentives to move.

Penalising people to get rid of them seems like corporate bullying to me. You catch more flies with honey than with treacle.

Oh, by the way, before I go. I can't answer for anyone else's posts, but I have never advocated shutting homeless families away in ghettos. I have suggested that there are empty buildings of all kinds in cities which could be converted into accommodation. the nature of that accommodation and which people could live in it was not mentioned, just the fact that it would increase the housing stock. Not reusing buildings is waste.

Likewise, I have not said that it is a wonderful thing that people live in houses that are bigger than they need - or indeed want, in a lot of cases - but that if councils feel that it would be a good idea for them to move on, there needs to be somewhere for them to go, and an incentive for them to go there

An incentive, not a draconian policy from a controlling power that tells them that they are selfish to want to stay and that they have no lasting connection with what has been their home for a long time. Not everyone feels that connection to the building they live in and the neighbours and neighbourhood they know and love, but it is very real. Lodgers? That needs careful handling too. The relationship can be abused in either direction.

What would 'incentivise' you to move out of your home so that more people could live in it, jura? Whatever it is, I expect the same would work for other people too. Do tell... <waits eagerly for reply>

Forgot to add, the ground floor row facing the main road is given over to shops.

Elegran a good example of your suggestion is The Dwellings, a massive old four-sided tenement block with an inside square in Ancoats, Manchester, which was a run-down area with lots of derelict buildings. It's been transformed as part of New Islington, and many of the old tenement dwellings are now Artisan's homes for single people, small families and professional couples. Some are still owned by a housing assocation, some buy to rent, and some owned outright by the occupiers. Right in the city centre. 20 years ago, there were only 20 or 30 people living in the city centre, now there are thousands, many in converted mills, warehouses, tenements and terraced houses.

High Streets are littered with boarded up shops. Instead of trying to turn the clock back twenty years why not convert them into flats? A friend of mine has just downsized from a tied three bedroomed house to a rented ground floor flat, close to the shops and she's never been happier.

I am between snorkels, but I am going for lunch and will be back later to see which of our suggestions meets with approval!

Agreed that old industrial units and even prefabs can be done in such a way that they are great and desirable - but I'd still say that they would be more suitable for older and younger people than for those with families. So may be we still have to look at 'incentivising' those who no longer need the space to move there, to make space for families.

I realised the contempt in which some professionals hold the 'lower orders' when I heard the then chairman of the RIBA say that he thought concrete tower blocks were very aesthetically pleasing. He was asked where he lived. Yes, in a 15th Century cottage in Rutland.

Can't sit here putting the world to rights and arguing potential solutions any longer. I am off to do something more constructive. Have fun.

Any development will become a ghetto if it is badly designed and/or the people living in it turn it into one.

How about the ground floor of an office block being coverted to commercial units and the upper floors to residential units? One commercial unit let out affordably to a nursery/creche for working mothers? Other utilities being encouraged to take up residence.

I can't find the post where any of us said 'Whatever you devise, the answer is still no'.
There are streets and streets of perfectly sound terraced houses in Greater Manchester which could easily be refurbished, but which are boarded up. Sometimes the site is earmarked for a new Tesco.

My neighbour's daughter and fiancé have just moved into a flat in a converted mill. I considered this myself when I downsized, but preferred to have a garden - a decision that has backfired in the last two years!
Owing to the contraction in the Services, there will be disused military estate which could be used to house families, if the MoD agree to release it. Sometimes these will be well away from towns and cities but might form the basis for 'new town' developments with schools, surgeries and shops.

Prefabs these days are an advance on those. They come with all wiring and plumbing built in, state-of-the art-kitchens and bathrooms and the latest heating, and they look great too. Best of all, they can be put up and habitable in a few days.