A divided society-what can be done?

So disagreeing with someone who claims to have much knowledge of schools is making it petty and personal. Dismissing a posters experience as not enough evidence isn't ?

I think the issue of church schools is something which should be debated but the focus should be the funding of such schools. Freedom of choice is something that should be available to every family, but others should not have to fund that choice. The schools should also have to show that they are reaching required standards at all levels- staffing, SATs,governance and syllabus.
I don't think faith schools can be held entirely responsible for the rise of racism and organisations like the EDL. I encountered most racist talk in state schools in deprived areas, and children certainly learned it at home. It is partly ignorance and fear. It is also to do with immigrant families having usually very high aspirations for their children and working very hard to improve their position. So the families make progress and begin to move out of poverty, leaving those still trapped, for one reason or another, to spread the myth that the immigrant family has been better treated. I would like to see someone on the left who could offer the same hopes as the EDL and identify the rich and powerful as the real enemy and not poor immigrants.

agreed Trisher. Without giving too much identifying detail, here is an example; two 16 year old girls, doing very well at a school ( school is on the verge of special measures, very poor exam results and behaviour management issues). One girl was encourages by her hard working parents, went on to sixth form college with views of University and career in journalism. Her friend was made to finish school and take a job at budget clothing shop because 'it is good enough for me and good enough for your sister'. Years later, I still wonder how that girl is getting on. These two girls, one of which I knew personally, live in an area of deprivation and low academic achievement and with a high percentage of immigrants, so illustrates exactly what Trisher was saying. This is the same area where it is said that 'the immigrants' get given houses and cars.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/05/eviction-company-advert-calls-tenants-household-pests

A real divided society. This ad has been on facebook for months and no landlord has complained about it.

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/aug/04/right-shelter-trump-profiteering-corbyn-housing

A good read.
Why is it that a right to profiteer from housing seems more acceptable to some than the right to a roof over your head?

Dunno durham. Do you know?

All it needs is the political will to stop it.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/03/buy-to-leave-housing-investment-policy

Not sure why you asked the question if you had the answer.

That's an answer.

But you already knew the answer when you posed the question. Didn't realise it was a rhetorical question durham !

It wasn't. Anyone else could have answered the question if they wanted to. Not even you have, just stirring.
Why?

This is what they do to solve the buy to leave problem in other countries.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/02/how-the-world-is-tackling-issue-of-empty-homes

I'm not "stirring" as you so eloquently put it durham ! You posted a question. I answered that I didn't know the answer to your question. I asked if you knew the answer. You posted the answer. I asked, if you knew the answer, why did you post the question. You said that that was the answer. I asked if your question had been rhetorical. Now you say I'm stirring!

Can't win!

So what is your answer?
I said it was AN answer, not THE answer, which is what you asked.
There could be lots of answers.

I told you, in my first reply "I dunno". Why are you asking me again?

Wonderful standard of debating Chewbacca you must be so proud of the intellectual level of your posts.

thanks Trisher Knew you'd understand.

dj was being the teacher, continuing to ask the question until she got the answer she wanted, even if she had to supply it herself.

Why is it that a right to profiteer from housing seems more acceptable to some than the right to a roof over your head?

Could the answer be that people were encouraged to Buy-to-Let during the Blair/Brown years as an investment for their pension when pension funds started to look rather precarious after the banking crisis?

It was not seen as 'profiteering' - it was seen as investment with a better return than could be obtained anywhere else.

apart from that, I dunno

Definitely profiteering when you buy hundreds of houses and leave them empty. Buy to let is different to buy to leave.

[sigh] some tenants can be so difficult and trash the place

And all the sarcy posts on here show that you care less about homeless and people who can't afford the rent than you do about sniping at me.
Nothing new there, Elegran and Chewbacca.

Thanks for responding, Jalima.
Blair has built up quite a property empire himself, hasn't he? Perhaps that's why he encouraged buy to let, although I doubt whether he has problems with his pensions.