Angela Rayner is a scrounger, grifter and shameless hypocrite.

It was a policy of that government and a mistake by them.

And am sure that most people on GN know all the facts about the sale of council houses and what happened back then as we are all older people on here with an interest in politics.

Oreo

It was a policy of that government and a mistake by them.

There is a world of difference between a deliberate policy and a 'mistake'. To equate the two is a gross misuse of our language.

Thatcher wanted to kill 'the state' as comprehensively as she possibly could. Eliminating council housing was part of the very deliberate process.

Yes, if the Thatcher government had allowed the councils to sell and then use the money to rebuild, that would have made a difference.
Yes, good news about the polling.

For all pedants on here…it was judged to be a mistake by many people, including me that more council houses weren’t built at the time.
Which is why I used the word mistake 😃

Maremia

Yes, if the Thatcher government had allowed the councils to sell and then use the money to rebuild, that would have made a difference.
Yes, good news about the polling.

Yes the polling news gave me a feelgood buzz the other day, especially as Reform looks to be dropping as well.
It’s early days but hope the Burnham Bounce keeps up.

Iam64

AGAA4

Sunshinegirls

07:08Maremia

What's your excuse you've been on this thread quite a few times 😀

I've been on this thread a few times too. It's not enjoyable but seeing someone being vilified for something they haven't done has to be addressed however horrible the thread is.

I’ve just read through this thread. I’m quoting AGAA4 because it sums up how I feel. There’s something grubby about seeing AR vilified by women, especially those of us old enough to be her mother.
AR had a tough childhood. Her mum had mh problems, dad often absent, leaving AR in a carer role. Like many others from similar backgrounds, school attendance wasn’t prioritised by parents. An early baby, then she took advantage of Sure Start and began to build a better life for herself. She’s more representative of many in her constituency than many, Nadine Norris for example. She represents grifting, shamelessness and hypocracy

Well said Iam64. Sadly there have always been some who who make others look bad by blowing their mistakes out of proportion.

This eleven year old Guardian article from Andy Beckett is worth a reread:

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisis

Extract:

[Thatcher’s] administration, supposedly dynamic and new, in fact partly lived off [the] social capital that stodgy old social democracy had produced. What would happen when that social capital began to run out, like what would happen when Britain ran out of cheap housing, was, in the early 1980s, a question for another day.

Unusually among Thatcher’s ministers, Heseltine had some sensitivity to the wider consequences for housing of right to buy. He successfully argued that councils should be allowed to keep three-quarters of the income from sales, in order to replace the homes sold. Contrary to right to buy’s small but growing number of critics since the 80s, the policy did not kill council home-building overnight: more than 250,000 state-owned dwellings were completed between 1980 and 1985.

But the rate of construction did slow, year by year. The share of the income from sales that went to councils was gradually eroded, against Heseltine’s wishes. In 1983 Thatcher moved him to the Ministry of Defence, in large part to use his bulldozing charisma against CND and the women of Greenham Common.

Meanwhile rents for remaining council tenants rose with a new alacrity. By 1991 they were 55% higher, relative to average earnings, than they had been 10 years earlier. “If it were not for the right to buy,” conclude Jones and Murie, “the council housing sector as a whole would have generated huge surpluses [from rental income] and the rise in real rents ... would not have been necessary.” Or to put it more directly: home ownership was made possible for wealthier council tenants through discounts paid for by their poorer neighbours.

And now over 40% of former council housing stock is in the hands of private landlords (over 70% in some parts of the country). Many tenants need to claim housing benefit to meet the extortionate rents they charge. Housing benefit going straight into the pockets of landlords. What a racket.

Rent control now, Rayner, to stop this profiteering.

Graphite, it really is a racket. Another problem I’ve observed on many occasions is people evicted from a council house for eg drug dealing, can reappear in the same area by privately renting a former council house.

Iam64. A house which might have been bought with drug money.

This File on 4 is ten years old but also worth another listen:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b07gfjhr

The popularity of right to buy has risen sharply since greater discounts were introduced four years ago, but so too have cases of fraud as people seek to exploit discounts of up to nearly £104,000.

Simon Cox goes on the trail of the fraudsters and the companies seeking to make big bucks out of right to buy. He discovers people trying to buy homes they're not entitled to and criminals attempting to launder drugs money. He investigates companies who offer tenants help to buy their home in order to get their hands on valuable properties.

It was partly at least why the discount was reduced.

I suppose anyone with a bit of money might have got it through selling drugs.
I must remember that...

I’m not suggesting anyone with a bit of money might have got it from drug dealing. I’m talking about ‘ordinary’ tenants whose lives were negatively affected by drug dealing. Council evicts dealer. Dealer returns to area in privately rented ex council house.