I'm old enough to remember when councils built houses with the profit from their rents, repaired stuff when needed, sold off a small proportion of the stock and were allowed invest in their estate. Now the profit goes towards paying housing professionals...

Much of the post-war housing was built on what was agricultural land, bought for a song. The local councils then granted themselves planning permission. There is absolutely no reason why a similar exercise couldn't be undertaken today. Similarly any banked land that has not been developed should be sequestered by the state and used for council house building. Couple that with the thousands of hectares of unused land currently owned by national and local government and there really is no shortage of availabl land, suitable for building truly affordable, mixed-use housing. The money to fund the building costs would be a doddle to raise, in fact given the current base rates, it would be criminal not to be raising capital through the sale of government bonds.

The money received in rents would cover the payments required on 30 year bonds, the savings on tax credits and housing benefit would also do more to relieve the exchequer that any austerity measures that Iain Duncan Smith could dream up. No matter how parlous the politicians would have you believe the UK's finances, they are in far better state than they were post-WW2.

The only thing missing is political will and unfortunately no party seems to have that

"It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour" - Margaret Thatcher

Shame she only put into action the first half of that statement.

Just as well she had somebody to look after her when she was in that rocking chair p!ssing her pants.

The problem with the mindset of looking after yourself is that you never quite get around to the second part, the looking after others bit.

HOUSING dipstick, we are discussing HOUSING.

Now what are your views (as in your personal views and not wiki soundbites) on the matter in debate?

Oh my apologies I thought we had moved on to discussing THATCHER, when the poster above regurgitated that THATCHER quote which is always taken out of context. But yes you didn't pick up on that....no....my apologies.

Bob Crow living in a council house?

Well it is obvious. He is representative of the hypocritical 'do as I say and not as I do' attitude which pervades the upper echelons of trade unions.

How is he not doing as he does?

He is living in a council house, the same house he moved into 30 years ago. He is a champion of council housing, he could have bought his council house for a pittance but chose instead to continue paying rent to the council.

How is that hypocritical?

Do you have the evidence that Crow has said that people who earn a decent whack should move out of their council house?

If not, I suggest you go and learn what hypocrisy actually means.

Now these unions would be the CBI, the BMA, the NFU, The Law Society, The Freight Transport Association, The Bankers Association etc., some of which are closed shops which means you can't work unless you are a member.

They are what you are talking about as well when you go into condemning union mode.

Oh and by the way

WHICH ECONOMY?

OK, open question, should Social Housing be based on NEED?

Its always been based on need.

Where we differ is that social housing, council housing, housing association housing, whatever you wish to call it, should not be regarded as charity, as something that people need in times of hardship as a stop-gap measure until they can "better themselves" and move on to mortgages or more expensive private lets.

Nor should we lose sight of the fact that renting is a lifestyle choice and not a shameful one, indeed its the norm in mainland Europe and given that fact the landlord/authority/manager should not have the sanction of re-housing families or individuals just because a bedroom tick box isn't filled - sure you may wish to review the case every five or ten years, you may wish to interview the tenant and ask if they are happy living in a 3 bed house and paying a 3 bed rent now that their children have flown the nest, but there should be no sanction to move the tenant simply because an accountant decrees it so as long as the tenant is paying the going rate.

I suspect that is not in line with what you would desire/practice now.