By Peter Mills.
It has been famously said that “An elephant is a mouse designed by a committee”. In fact, it is perhaps more apt to state that “a white elephant is a policy designed by government!”
A little while ago, the Government came up with a plan to reduce the cost of welfare which became known as the ‘bedroom tax’. Regardless of the plain fact that only a relatively small number of single bedroom accommodations were ever constructed in Britain, anyone receiving housing benefit and living in social housing with bedrooms additional to their needs would be forced to pay an extra monthly fee, or face eviction.
The argument is that it’s unfair for taxpayers to fund accommodation larger than people need when others are restricted in what they can afford from their own means. Immigration has of course intensified the pressure on social housing.
In fact, the records show that a considerable number of people affected by this arguably unjust policy where it applies to those in existing accommodation have had to move out of homes they have rented for a long period.
So how much money has the ‘bedroom tax’ policy saved our country’s taxpayers? Well – it appears from recent developments that it may be actually costing money! In fact, the figures now leaking out show the real story.
The truth was recently discerned by Margaret Burgess, the Housing and Welfare Minister of the Scottish Parliament. She has written an official letter to the Westminster Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud. In this letter, Ms Burgess points out that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has unearthed the inconvenient fact that the cost of making the system work per year may be greater than the amount of money it saves!
The figures take into account the cost to Government of the increase in Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) for people who are entitled to receive assistance with housing payments, the increase of rent arrears across the country, increased administration, the extra financial costs of special advice and support services, and the increase in legal costs for nationwide evictions caused by implementation of the bedroom rules.
In plain figures, the amount of money the government hoped the Department of Works and Pensions could save in Scotland alone was up to £50 million per year. It is now estimated that the cost of making this saving amounts to at least £60 million per year. It is conceivable that the financial loss to the treasury will be even greater in England than in Scotland.
This result has been produced by not thinking things through with sufficient clarity. The British people deserve better government than this!
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History tells us Conservative Governments always do their utmost to attack the poor of the British working class. I believe this tax probably has little to do with seriously saving money. It’s all about giving the housing crisis in our country a short-term solution.
Housing Associations were originally set up to house workers in the 19th century. Nowadays big business,and top executives earning more than the Prime Minister run these projects. You want be surprised to learn that they are politically correct organisations who give priority to single mothers many of whom are not single and who come from a far foreign land.
I would argue this tax goes further. More people than ever before live alone. A single person on basic benefit of £77 a week simply wont be able to afford to stay in their home. They will be forced into a tiny bedsit or a single room.
Rents have gone up in the private sector – landlordism is rife amongst many of the foreign elite in London. I know of a whole block that is African owned. Obviously the rents they charge more than pay the mortgage. Housing Association rents go up each year and they are quite simply profit-oriented organizations these days. Let’s us not forget the ‘Thatcher’ policy of selling off the council homes was a complete disaster for our future generations.
The LibLabCon have no solution to the continuing accommodation crisis in our nation: their post war liberalism has created the situation. One could say the original idea of Housing Associations was quite Nationalistic.
So much property is being bought by foreigners in London that soon British people won’t be able to afford to live there.
This policy, which has been dubbed “the bedroom tax”, was never really meant to save money anyway. It’s all about cramming as many incomers as possible into existing housing stock as we can’t build more homes for them all quickly enough. Perhaps there wouldn’t be such a housing crisis if we stopped all further immigration. Accompanied, of course, by a policy of offering very generous resettlement grants to previous immigrants to return to their lands of origin.
Is this such an outrageous idea? Of course, this view is seen as being totally unacceptable by those in Government today. They obviously think it’s much better to simply continue filling up our overcrowded nation, already the most densely populated in the entire of Europe. Our people find themselves having to compete for what little public housing we have left as a nation. Our young find themselves having little or no hope of ever getting onto the property ladder, as demand has pushed prices through the ceiling.
The reality is that our own indigenous people are a declining population, so it is blatantly clear that if it wasn’t for recent, and continuing, mass immigration there wouldn’t be a shortage of housing and it wouldn’t even be an issue. But, then again, we in the British Democratic Party are regarded by those who presently govern us as being unacceptable extremists for simply daring to state the painfully obvious.
Indeed so, Geoff. So many of our country’s problems can be linked in some way to the continual flood of mass immigration which this present shambolic ‘government’ is doing very little to seriously address. This ranges from problems with housing to overloaded transport systems to mass unemployment. The list is almost endless. If only Britain had an electable and serious moderate nationalist party. Hopefully, we can become such a party.
Indeed so Steven. Just about all of the problems that we face pivot on mass immigration. From housing shortage, unemployment, lack of enough school places, traffic congestion, NHS overburdened, government overspend on welfare benefits, rising crime levels and lack of social cohesion to the changing face of entire areas which have become unrecognisable as Britain, where hardly one white face can be found.
This is not what our grandparents died on the battlefields of Europe fighting the Nazis for. This is the dream (or rather a nightmare) of well-to-do liberals that have control over the major political parties, and are busily amassing personal wealth believing (or rather praying) that all will work out well in the end. The result so far is a disjointed society, ill at ease with itself but oppressed into silence through fear of punishment for daring to speak their minds. Again, the freedom of speech our ancestors fought so hard for being taken away by politicians who won’t allow real democracy.
Don’t forget the environmental and ecological damage caused by mass immigration’s knock-on effects: environmentally unsustainable population growth, which in turn leads to an in increased demand for housing and supporting infrastructure (roads and so on), loss of countryside, ruination of our natural landscape and harmful effects on our wildlife and biodiversity/ecology. Furthermore, less agricultural acreage for growing our food.
The sickening destruction of our countryside (our natural heritage) should be a top campaigning issue for all British Nationalist parties.
I fully agree with Steven’s comment regarding the failed global economic model, which needs to be replaced by a sustainable and ethical economic model based on Nationalist principles. Unchecked economic growth (or growth for growth’s sake) and materialism should not be at the expense of Britain’s countryside.
Britain has to be given a REAL choice to vote for as an alternative to the globalist Lib/Lab/CON party. UKIP is simply the City of London-loving, globalist, anti-EU, Thatcherite, atlantacist wing of the Tory Party in exile and as such is NO solution to this country’s growing ills.
It will be interesting to see how well they do in the forthcoming by-election in Wythenshaw and Sale East. I expect Labour tor retain the seat by a considerable margin and UKIP to come second but only achieving that by taking Tory votes in the main.
Its a real shame that UKIP is presently beguiling the British electorate as that party has some fundamental flaws to it most notably its globalist economic approach which is not just wrong economically-speaking as it will fail to rectify Britain’s ever-worsening economic problems but also wrong politically as it prevents UKIP from really widening their social appeal.
(Party Member) As Geoff states above WE do not have a housing crisis. If there had not been mass immigration then, like with much else, there would not be a problem.
(Party Member) Someone I know is enraged about the new housing benefit rules. He thinks, rightly in his case, that all housing is free with no costs whatsoever. Under the new system he now has to pay about 18% towards the rent. This comes out of “his money”. The worst thing that could happen is someone might offer him a job and then he would have to pay all his rent!