Conservative Manifesto

gill please point out which post I said that anyone was 'lower class'

I hope rules are brought in to ensure that tenants who buy at a discount do not immediately re-sell at a profit or re-rent the property they buy.

I don't know why housing association chiefs are so against tenants purchasing their rented property for themselves when they have been known to auction off properties in the past which have been purchased by the likes of Emily Thornberry who then re-rents the property. (Labour MP and millionare property owner - remember her - the one who made comments during a bi-election about the house with the white van and the flag?).

Yes rosequartz she is a real hypocrite if ever there was one.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3040796/Labour-s-queen-hypocrisy-MP-sneered-white-van-man-attacks-Tory-right-buy-plan-thought-bought

If social housing were to be more like private housing there would be less of a problem. The newbuild starter homes are small but quite luxurious compared to a council house. Why not put tenants in the private houses ?
There would be an uproar, mummy and daddys little darlings fresh from uni would not like scruffy dole claimants next door with broken down cars etc etc. That would be equality!!!

None of you lot would like that so why cant those on a low wage aspire to do better for themselves. The road sweeper should be given a bit of help to buy a house because after all if he gave up his job he would be living on taxpayers money for life, would it not be cheaper to subsidise his buying of his social rented home. I don't have a chip on my shoulder, I am buying my council house, luckily not in a bad area, and I am so proud of my little house which would not be possible if it had not been for Margaret Thatcher.

Thank you all for helping me to decide who to vote for because up to now I really was going to stick a pin on the voting form but having seen some of your comments I now know who I am in favour of.

don't forget that by 'helping those les well off' sometimes means keeping them in their social group, true helping means giving them a chance to better themselves by their own effort.

I like that last paragraph, ethel, I must remember it!

I just had a thought - some posters who were saying that people such as nurses, teachers, other public sector workers and indeed members of their own families could never hope to buy their own houses, particularly in the south-east are now saying they are against proposed 'right-to-buy'.

I am - or is it other posters who have a confused idealogy?

Confused Ideology!

In my job I have met many professionals who live in an ex council house. I met a solicitor, just qualified, several nurses and the junior manager of my local bank and such as the nurses are happy to buy from the council and move up the 'ladder'.

We have quite a lot of brand new social housing in our area ethelbags1 and I can assure you it is very much better than a lot of the private housing available. Much bigger gardens, modern designs, light and airy. Crikey knows how you get one though. Probably have to be related to a councillor (thats tends to be the way things work around here)or at the very least be a member in the Labour party.

Also are most "road sweepers" not employed by the local authority anyway? in which case they are already living off tax payers money.

I wish someone would help me decide who to vote for.

I was born and brought up in a council house and proud of the fact. When I was a young single mother I had a lovely council house. Wish the heck I had kept it too. I would have been quids in.

Chip? You have a whole poke* of them.

1) Uni graduates come from all "classes" Even when I was a student I had a friends who lived in a poky flat where her parents slept in a double bed in the living room, with the sink as a bedside table and the gas cooker within easy reach, while she was in a tiny room next door. That was it - two rooms - the loo (no window or light) had been boxed off in a corner of the hall and there was no bathroom. She got a better degree than I did.

2) The new council houses that I lived in were of excellent construction, so was the old one I lived in for a while. The standard of building is up to the authority that commissions them, just as the standard of private housing is up to the wishes of the speculative builder who puts them up. Luxurious? Do you think that a privately-built matchbox from a speculative builder is luxurious? Who the hell needs luxurious anyway - private or Local Authority? What is needed is solidly built structures that will survive being battered by a family, with good facilities, decent sized rooms and garden, and bus routes and shops and surgeries and so on.

3) It is great that you are proud of your little house and I wish you well in it. but my mother was proud of her house too, and she had not bought it.

3) Your mind is your own. How you vote has nothing to do with the posts on this thread, so don't accuse posters of influencing you in one direction or another.They come from people who vote for all political parties, and from those (like me) who have no intention of telling you how I intend to vote. I don't tell the pushy canvassers who keep ringing my doorbell either.

*Poke = paper packet of fish and chips.

we have new social housing here too but it is all the same, horrid iron fences, doors the same as the street, lawns plain and bare. who wants to look like hundreds of others, that's one of the reason I bought mine so I could be different, I don't want to sit out in a garden where the street can see me through iron railings. I want my property to look different and so do many people.
You get social housing by telling them you have a child/children and are separated and have no where to go, you go into a b and b and have a good social worker and they speak up for you, it helps if you are not English and have a child with adhd. You can get a relative to say they cannot have you to stay because of the childs behaviour, you get many things like this I wish I had a child now I would be well off.

Thanks for the link, gillybob
Someone told me about her this morning.

It is no good our family getting excited about a proposed 30 hour childcare provision for 3 and 4 year olds because we are in Wales.
Contrary to what someone posted, some children are nearly 5 when they start school and school nurseries only provide a limited number of hours free, is it 15 hours in England? - in Wales only 12.5 hours are provided free spread over 5 days and there are not many school nurseries in our area anyway. I have not heard any proposals to increase the number of hours in Wales where at present Labour are in charge - and will continue to be of course as the Assembly elections are not due.
Any proposed beneficial initiatives seem to apply to England only.

Anyone who is thinking of voting Labour should try living the reality of a Labour government in Wales before they decide - if they have an open, not blinkered, mind they may well change it! Even the parent of the First Minister recently used the private sector for healthcare because the waiting time for operations is so long!
We are turning into a second-rate poor relation under Labour.

The houses are all the same because it is cheaper to do it that way than to make them all different. Streets of cheap speculative houseing are all the same too. The gardens in new private houses are all the same as well - buyers make them individual for themselves after they move in. It is only the most expensive houses that come complete with a garden beautifully and individually landscaped. Not many of us are in those.

Is there any law that says the doors have to be all the same colour? A tin of paint would make them different.

Your home is what you make of it. Some people can put their stamp on a house, some can't.

I am not sure how anyone gets a housing association house to rent, either.
Just a very limited number (4) were built in our village for 'local people in need of housing'.
The young woman next door lived with her child (a boy aged 10), parents and her two brothers in parents' 3 bedroomed house. She had to share a bedroom with her son.
Despite being on the list and being born and bred in the village, she did not get one.
DS and DIL + DGDs therefore had no hope as they were renting privately, despite being on the list.

Goodness knows who the people are who were allocated the houses, one family with their 4x4 now parked outside.

There are rules about what you can and can't do to the house if you're a council tenant. I don't think you can just buy a tin of paint and change the front door colour willy-nilly, especially if you're a newish tenant.

I forgot the horrid iron fencing. That can be camouflaged by growing a clematis to weave in and out of it - price a couple of pounds in B&Q. Fencing likewise to make a space to sit out in without being on view - if wooden fencing is too dear, those 4 metre long rolled-up bamboo screens are £10 each on Ebay and can be attached to chain link fencing. For crying out loud, do we want our whole lifestyle to be laid out for us by someone else? Making the most of what we have is up to each individual.

Exactly Elegran My house was exactly the same as all of the others built in the same style on our very large estate. However in the last few years we have changed our front door and created a small front garden (all of the others are paved and very boring). You are right, your home is what you make it.

still wouldn't mind living in a nice big house with those landscaped gardens though

I like my horrid iron fencing.

DH keeps our immaculately painted though which makes a big difference. As I said earlier we took up the horrible paving slabs and made the front into a real garden.

Almost all of the council houses on my DS's estate have been given lovely new composite front doors (along with new windows, central heating, kitchens and bathrooms) under the decent homes scheme. The tenant could choose the style and the colour of kitchen and door they wanted.

I hasten to add that DS and DiL do not live in one of them as they bought their house from an ex council tenant quite a few years ago.

Who know doubt bought it for less than £10,000 and made a nice tidy profit.

One of my DS got into a shared house (social housing) because he was on a very low salary. Everyone in the house was a 'key worker' doing an essential job in London but couldn't afford to rent at London prices. I believe he got the room through the organisation he worked for.

When DS lived in London he bought an ex housing association flat, I was very impressed by the size of the rooms, as it was a first floor flat he also had a large balcony. I think he would have been happy there except for the fact that the family above him had five small boys and laminate flooring, imagine the noise. DS suggested to the tenants above that they purchase a soft close toilet seat as the kiddies were banging the seat down, nothing was ever done and the noise became unbearable. He moved out of London to the north east and bought a big detached house with the proceeds of the sale of the flat.
My maternal GPs had a house in a village which was way superior to the one we lived in, had three bathrooms when some were lucky to have one and it was local authority housing.

I expect I am going to regret this but honestly, with regard to ET, she bought a property at an auction that a HA was selling off ( they do this sometimes). She could just have easily bought a house that a private individual was selling. I don't think it's relevant that it was HA. You might want to criticise her for being a buy to rent landlord ( and I would) but that's a different point. The issue re HA properties that some of us are against is forcing HA to sell their properties as this will only force more and more people into the private rented sector with little security and no rent regulation. It does nothing to address the really serious issue of affordable housing in this country or add to the housing stock. As for not wanting people to better themselves, whatever that means, having a decent home which you can afford with security of tenure seems to me like a good place from which to live a good life, with your children settled in a local school and the adults able to form links within the community. This is not on offer to families living in B and B or having to move around the private rented sector against their will.

Also when HA choose to sell off their properties, they get the best market price for them which they can turn re-invest - no discounts.