General Discussion
"this rolling back of the state began under Thatcher," Yes, I agree. And here's the rub. The electorate may vote/have voted for low taxes, but they still expect good and plentiful hospitals, schools, police, armed forces, road sweepers, pot hole free roads, state pensions etc. etc. Trouble is, it now seems there's not enough tax revenue to pay for all those things so many of us expect ...
@Michael Thompson - i totally agree with you that it is conservative philosophy that the state should be small, public spending to be small and taxes to be small irrespective of the state of the national economy and that they are presently using the deficit as their excuse for cutting back on public spending eg Welfare. If we had a surplus of national funds and a healthy economy with near ...
From the Wikipedia link that I posted above. "Remedies for indebtedness All the main political parties in Britain agree that the national debt is too high, but there is disagreement as to the remedy. As of 2012 the national debt was forecast to approach 100% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), far above the government’s sustainable investment rule of a national debt no greater than 40% of ...
https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week?utm_campaign=action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition
We all need to be clear what we mean by the terms "the country's deficit" and "the country's debt". They are not the same thing but the terms often get used as though they are. Been trying to find a link that explains the difference between the two and in a way that we can all understand. Found this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt Anyone else got another link ...
http://www.dawlish.gov.uk/edit/uploads/2013adminofficeradvertisement1068.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/30/bedroom-tax-disaster-housing-chief
We agree then that the rent defaulting situation will worsen. So..........if more social housing tenants default on their rent payments to such an extent that they face eviction where then will they be rehoused? It won't be the private rented sector will it for as you say there are a lot of private sector landlords who say "No DSS" (you can see that expression every week in the property pages ...
Well, whether you buy it or not Paul, it is likely to happen. The government has been told it is likely to happen. The government has chosen not to listen. Which brings us to the cost to the public purse of any consequent eviction procedures, court hearings etc and then the cost to the public purse of where those who have been evicted end up living. Unless of course they end up homeless and ...
At the moment social housing tenants who need to claim HB have the HB part of their rent paid directly to their social landlord. With the advent of the universal credit this will stop (with a few exceptions) so that the HB goes to the tenant who will then have to pass onto their social landlords themselves. The concern is that rent arrears will rise because money will be even tighter in such ...
