The Queen's Jubilee

[Lateralthinking1]

You get to sound more and more like this man, with each passing day, Lat!

http://www.maxhastings.com

Ah, but I think you too would choose Butskellism over anything we are currently being offered. I am quite clear that the Royal Family is only needed because we don't live in a democracy. There is no evidence to suggest that it is responsible in any way for the inefficient multi-party dictatorship. And it is the British* public that needs to get a grip.

* Correction - English not British. They have managed it perfectly well in Scotland.

[ahinton]

I'm not sure that reveals the limitations on monarchical power - after all, he was only king for 10 months. Also there is plenty of evidence - aired in the 1990s Channel 4 documentary Edward VIII - The Traitor King - that his strong pro-Hitler sympathies predated his abdication. In that documentary, it was reported that when German troops marched into the Rhineland in 1936, the king made clear his support for that action to the Germans as well as his intention to oppose any military response by his own government. Not only that, but secret Cabinet discussions had been disclosed to the Germans either by the king or by Mrs Simpson. That was almost certainly unconstitutional, and caused great anxiety to the then British cabinet.

Sure - but then he got rid of himself (or was persuaded to do so) as monarch before he could run the risk of wreaking potential or actual constitutional havoc and, had he not done so and his exercising of royal prerogative contrary to the majority of the electorate's interests, there would soon have been serious questioning of conflicts between the policies of the elected government of the day and the exercise of royal prerogative.

[Serial_Apologist]

Ah, but I think you too would choose Butskellism over anything we are currently being offered. I am quite clear that the Royal Family is only needed because we don't live in a democracy. There is no evidence to suggest that it is responsible in any way for the inefficient multi-party dictatorship. And it is the British* public that needs to get a grip.

* Correction - English not British. They have managed it perfectly well in Scotland.

That's probably true when I face up to it, Lat. There was no history of left thinking in my family - the nearest coming from my Granddad one day saying, "The government should build more housing for the poor", to which Dad retorted, "Then that makes you a communist!" - so I had nothing so to speak to go on until I belatedly started questioning at about age 22. I'd probably have gone along with Bevan's rhetoric that he was "Not prepared to go naked into the conference chamber" by eschewing Britain's nuclear capability at the UN.

Of course, today's Labour Party is well to the right of McMillan's Tories; but back then there was the dewey-eyed one-nation consensus that the sun would never really set on the British Empire, even as the old flags went down and the new ones went up.

[Lateralthinking1]

That's probably true when I face up to it, Lat. There was no history of left thinking in my family - the nearest coming from my Granddad one day saying, "The government should build more housing for the poor", to which Dad retorted, "Then that makes you a communist!" - so I had nothing so to speak to go on until I belatedly started questioning at about age 22. I'd probably have gone along with Bevan's rhetoric that he was "Not prepared to go naked into the conference chamber" by eschewing Britain's nuclear capability at the UN.

Of course, today's Labour Party is well to the right of McMillan's Tories; but back then there was the dewey-eyed one-nation consensus that the sun would never really set on the British Empire, even as the old flags went down and the new ones went up.

That is very fair. The reason why I chose the Liberal Party in the late 1970s was that it was the underdog. Not seeing myself wholly as an underdog at that time, I quickly became a Social Democrat. It was closer to how I felt. Looking to a new future in the country with everyone getting on splendidly together. The emphasis was on the haves being prepared to share with the have nots. I expected that to happen, if not on moral grounds then because the have nots were far more cool.

When I think about it, that was a sort of Butskellism with groovy synthesisers. The latter rapidly disappeared. With hindsight, I doubt that it was incredibly well-informed, ground-breaking, political theory at its best. It still isn't, for what in truth does anyone really know? All I know is that most of us know more than those who are supposed to know. And that's very disappointing.

[ahinton]

That's probably true when I face up to it, Lat. There was no history of left thinking in my family - the nearest coming from my Granddad one day saying, "The government should build more housing for the poor", to which Dad retorted, "Then that makes you a communist!"

But what I presume your grandfather not to have added (unless I'm wrong, in which case please contradict me) was at what cost, met by whom and what opportunities would those renting such housing (and such housebuilding would almost certainly have been for a rental market) might later have for purchasing the properties that they were renting. Building housing for rental by the poorer people in society, whilst obviously a noble aspiration, is fraught with difficulties, especially in those tougher economic times that inevitably affect the poorest the worst, because not only the building costs but also the land costs and subsequent maintenance costs and rental collection costs have to be met at all times by taxpayers and the worse the economy the more people become unemployed and the tax take then depletes while benefit liabilities increase. It is therefore surely far more inportant to try to help the poorest out of poverty than consign them to "cheap" housing at everyone else's expense that can afford to pay enough taxes to fund it. It's the same thing with state benefits; in the harshest economic climes, liabilities for these increase substantially at the same time as the taxes to fund them decrease, hence the need fo government to borrow to help pay those benefits because there's not - and indeed cannot realistically be - enough tax coming into the Treasury coffers to cover them in full. I'm not against so-called "social housing" in principle but I do accept that maintaining adequate "social" housing stock for the rental market is at best very difficult and at worst almost impossible.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i think Krugman has a point; most of the time what ahinton posts above is unexceptional if centrist but now is different ... we have a strike by capital, a recalcitrant housing market and growing unemployment amongst young people it is a major depression not a downturn .... and all policy has to be seen in that context ..so this Deweyan pragmatist would be building council houses like crazy and a lot else besides and would not be giving taxpayer's money to the capital interest at all

[french frank]

I'm not against so-called "social housing" in principle but I do accept that maintaining adequate "social" housing stock for the rental market is at best very difficult and at worst almost impossible.

Well, it would help if they didn't sell it off.

[JohnSkelton]

at what cost, met by whom ... whilst obviously a noble aspiration, is fraught with difficulties, especially in those tougher economic times ... at everyone else's expense that can afford to pay enough taxes to fund it. It's the same thing with state benefits ... at best very difficult and at worst almost impossible.

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

[ahinton]

i think Krugman has a point; most of the time what ahinton posts above is unexceptional if centrist but now is different ... we have a strike by capital, a recalcitrant housing market and growing unemployment amongst young people it is a major depression not a downturn .... and all policy has to be seen in that context ..so this Deweyan pragmatist would be building council houses like crazy and a lot else besides and would not be giving taxpayer's money to the capital interest at all

I'm neither centrist nor rightist nor leftist, actually - but the problem, as I stated of "social housing" projects is that local authorities (or national government) have to fund the cost of purchasing the land on which it's to be built as well as the building project itself and, most problematic of all, thereby awards itself an ongoing financial burden in maintaining it (physically and administgratively) which it becomes ever more cash-strapped to do fully when times get hard and council tax receipts are decreasing; all these projects are all very well, but they have to be financed out of taxes or borrowing or both and if the tax take is insufficient and lenders won't lend enough then it becomes ever harder to achieve. You rightly write of a "recalcitrant housing market" (although it's neither quite as bad as in Spain or France or indeed as it was here a couple of years or so back, for example), but the owners and maintainers of "social housing" are at the mercy of the vagaries of that market just as much as is anyone else.

[ahinton]

Well, it would help if they didn't sell it off.

That doesn't necesarily follow; If councils can't afford any longer to maintain the social housing for which they're responsible as owners and they can't get enough tax and borrowings to do so, what are they supposed to do? In any case, some of the social housing that's sold off is sold by its tenants rather than the local authorities.

[teamsaint]

Well, it would help if they didn't sell it off.

or built one to replace each one sold.
But that has never happened yet, so I don't suppose it would start now.

A goal of enough good quality housing to properly house our people, so that most people could actually afford to rent or buy is a reasonable aspiration.
Perhaps some politicians would like to do something about it.
Its really not impossible.

[ahinton]

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Interesting, of course, but I don't think that it's too much to claim that we've moved on a tad since 1792! I'm not undermining the gravity of many contemporary situjations in so saying, of course, but when it comes to social housing and the benefits and services provided by the state, everyone's expectations (including life expectancy) are vastly greater than they were then and yet they are accordoingly ever harder and more expensive to meet - and for longer, in most people's cases, too.

[ahinton]

or built one to replace each one sold.
But that has never happened yet, so I don't suppose it would start now.

A goal of enough good quality housing to properly house our people, so that most people could actually afford to rent or buy is a reasonable aspiration.
Perhaps some politicians would like to do something about it.
Its really not impossible.

Provided only that sufficient funds can be found to buy the necessary land, build the properties, insure them, rent them out, collect the rents and maintain the buildings to an acceptable standard at all times on behalf of their tenants who will in any case have the right to buy them if they so choose and can borrow sufficient funds to enable them to do so.

[french frank]

on behalf of their tenants who will in any case have the right to buy them if they so choose

Wasn't the right to buy introduced by Thatcher to divest local authorities of the housing and financial responsibility for maintaining it? The price was set so low that it was the equivalent of giving away public money to people to allow them to buy public property.

In any case, some of the social housing that's sold off is sold by its tenants rather than the local authorities.

How can tenants do that - legally?

[JohnSkelton]

1792

1729.