Ownership for all?

 

 

Ownership for everyone

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā In the 1980s I took to Margaret Thatcher the idea of ownership for everyone. She was already a keen exponent of Council house sales, the sale at a discount of a rented state owned home to the tenant. It was a win win for everyone involved. The Council or government got its money back on the home to be able to build a new one or to clear its debts. The tenant changed rent for mortgage so as they approached retirement the mortgage would be paid off and they had no more rent to pay. Surely old age is more secure if you are rent free? They could also extend, improve, decorate their homes as they saw fit, free of tenancy restrictions. We worked on beefed up home sales. The Opposition parties opposed but some of their Councillors and members loved the idea enough to buy their own.Ā 

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  Margaret agreed we could work up a series of measures to give more people more opportunity to own. We extended and improved employee share schemes, so those working for a larger company could be a shareholder. We launched a big privatisation programme with special deals to encourage employee shareholdings, including some free shares. We advertised the share offers direct to the public, and many bought their share in a great nationalĀ  company like British Telecom or British Gas. We fostered more employee and management buyouts of the businesses they worked for and led by example with the very successful sale of National Freight to the lorry drivers and managers of the company. This was followed by Tower Colliery where the miners who bought it proved the nationalised industry had been too pessimistic about its prospects when they wanted to close it.Ā 

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  We let people save for their pension in personal pension plan portfolios instead of having to do it through collective company wide schemes. This meant people could see what shares and bonds they owned and could influence how the money was invested directly. For those staying with the larger schemes we worked on improving the information so savers could see they indirectly owned shares in many of the great companies of the UK.Ā 

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā You cannot have capitalism without many people owning capital, If capital is too concentrated it willĀ  be resented. It becomes easier for those who dislike free enterprise to gain majorities in democratic Parliaments and seek to tax and legislate it into difficulties. Conservatives believe in levelling up, not levelling down. It does not give capital to the poor by taking away more of the capital and income of the rich. It will drive the rich to other countries or will get them to hire smarter lawyers and tax advisers. Conservatives believe in policies that promote wider ownership and allow markets to set prices that expand supply and tackle shortages.

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā WeĀ  do believe in collective insurance against unemployment and disability. A successful free enterprise society can afford to help the vulnerable with the costs of a decent life. We also believe in individual and family effort and insurance wherever possible. That is why it must always be worthwhile to work rather than to be on benefit. That is why from self employed to billionaire large company it must always be worthwhile to venture, to expand, to serve customers better. Socialism is the politics of envy, where people would rather everyone was worse off if less unequal. Conservatism is the politics of aspiration, where we want the many to be better off by their own efforts and the vulnerable minorityĀ  to be well looked after through state action. We welcome ownership for the many.Ā  We promote better paid jobs with smarter working and higher levels of training.Ā Ā 

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  We want a can do society, a society where the strivers are the heroes and where free enterprise can show it serves you better.Ā 

 

 

 

 

 

Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Ā 

 

121 Comments

  1. Fedupsouthener
    February 8, 2023

    Fact. Not everyone can afford to be a home owner. Some people will always have to rent and selling off council property was not a great idea when some councils didn’t replace that housing leaving it to the private sector to fill the gap with much higher rents. Many elderly home owners have borrowed so much against the value of their properties or remortgaged until they are forced to sell and then go into rented ac oxidation letting social services pick up the bill when they can’t afford the landlords rent. This is the case with the house we purchased and I know of other retired people who have done the same. There will always be a need for reasonably priced housing for those wishing to rent or those on a low income. The councils have abdicated responsibility and now the rental sector is unaffordable for many without assistance from the benefits sector.

    1. Hat man
      February 8, 2023

      Councils did not ‘abdicate responsibility’ for social housing, FUS. When the Tories allowed massive council house sell-offs in the 1980s, they disallowed councils from spending the proceeds of the sales on building new social housing. The money remained for a long time in unused accounts – it would be interesting to know what eventually happened to it,

    2. Ashley
      February 8, 2023

      Rents are expensive due to lack of supply and the governments open door immigration agenda. This lack of supply is due to planning restrictions, OTT green crap building regs, government bank lending restrictions, the taxation system that taxes landlords on profits they have not even made (the dire Osborne), fears that labour will steal properties off landlords with rent controls (as per Ed Milibandā€™s evil tombstone promises) endless red tape.

      Entirely caused by government ill thought out actions.

      1. Bazman
        February 12, 2023

        That will be the same reasons that housing and rents are epensive in most major cities in the world from Japan, Europe, America, Canada, China India Autralia etc. huh?
        They all follow the same tax and planning laws and have the same building regulations?

    3. Wanderer
      February 8, 2023

      FUS, I quite agree.

      Councils didn’t replace homes for monetary (the homes were often sold at a massive discount) and other reasons. Any new social housing that was built was more cramped and with less green space than the older stock. Right to Buy benefitted many lucky sitting tenants – I was employed to value the properties, they were jubilant at the windfall profit they could make. As time went on though, I came across quite a few who had blown the cash/couldn’t manage a mortgage, and were back in social housing again.

      I can feel the idealism in the description by our host, but in a way “Right to buy” was a handout by government of our assets, to buy votes/carry out social engineering. The sort of thing we accuse the left of doing. Certainly not a free market policy, and the tenants knew it but weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

    4. Know-Dice
      February 8, 2023

      FUS, With regard to councils replacing properties sold under the “Right to buy” scheme, I understood that councils were not allowed to use this income to fund replacement properties.

      Reply They were encouraged to spend the net proceeds on replacements.

      1. Hat man
        February 8, 2023

        Reply to reply: Not for a long time, SJR. The proceeds of council house sales were defined as capital income. ‘Local Government and Housing Act 1989 required local authorities to set aside 75% of sales receipts, which could only be used to pay down debt until the local authority became debt-free.’ (House of Lords library) The balance couldnā€™t necessarily be spent on housing as the Government controlled how much capital expenditure each council could make.

      2. hefner
        February 8, 2023

        ā€˜They were encouraged to spend the net proceeds on replacementsā€™: only about a third had been replaced by 2012 (shelter.org, and for a more extensive analysis ā€˜The Right to Buy Selling off public and social housingā€™, 2016, A. Murrie, Policy Press.

      3. Wanderer
        February 8, 2023

        Reply to reply.
        Unfortunately that didn’t work.

        Councils had just seen their ratepayers’ assets (Council homes) forcibly sold at a discount. There was every possibility that if they built more Council Houses, the law would change and they’d be forced to sell the replacement houses at a discount too, losing out again.

      4. Berkshire Alan.
        February 8, 2023

        Reply – Reply

        Thought new Council houses were only allowed to be built, after them having to pay off the Councils debt first.
        Apart from that, what is the encouragement for the Council to build a new house, with the discounted sales value money they have, at the current building cost, and then the people who move in, then have a right to buy it at a discount to it’s market price, and possible cost value !
        Thus it never ever increased the actual housing stock at all, it just gave in many cases, Son’s and Daughters a huge future windfall profit.

    5. Cuibono
      February 8, 2023

      I often wonder whether the sale of council houses was a first move in making everyone middle class ( whilst not teaching the chosen new entrants HOW to be middle class) or simply the creation of a Tory voting mob.
      Whichever, it was horribly unfair on those who had to work and save up for a house. Very hard seeing others being handed ownership, and later on, huge wads of cash to vacate council houses earmarked for demolition and handing over to large housing trusts.
      Certainly society has been shaken up and wrung out and it is very much the worse for that!

    6. Ian B
      February 8, 2023

      @Fedupsouthener

      To me the point being made is that the State, the Government, if it was to focus on releasing us all to take responsibility for our own lives we could make this Country a better place.

      Its Government interference, manipulation and coercion that is at the root of all our ills. The only reason we have a tax rate at a 70 year high it is Government then wants to be seen to give it away, to be ā€˜seenā€™ to orchestrate every minutiae of everyone’s life in a one size fit all Socialist Dogma. It fails Governments, are terrible at actual detailed Management.

      Yet the Country thought the were voting Conservative. Even the Conservative Party has been excluded for voting their leader – its a mess

      1. Timaction
        February 8, 2023

        This Government is NOT conservative in any way. Sir John knows it, everyone in the Country knows it. It must be worse for real conservatives in the Consocialists Party to try and defend its policies and actions. Now Hunt has announced a digital currency. More control anyone? Goodbye Torys, welcome Reform.

    7. Peter
      February 8, 2023

      FUS,

      Agreed. The fine words in the article donā€™t always match reality. Housing is crazy at the moment.

      On the other side of the coin, where a council has got involved in affordable housing, in Croydon, it has been an absolute disaster due to mismanagement and lack of control from the outset. Council finances were ruined in the process.

      Normal pensions have now been destroyed. Thanks Gordon Brown. So much so, that defined benefit pensions are now routinely described as ā€˜gold platedā€™. Pensioners are now targeted by spivs with offers to turn an existing pension into one that is too good to be true.

      The SIds of this world now find that the cheap shares the got in the 1980s are offset by the soaring cost of gas ( and water and electricity). Nobody told Sid that was part of the price.

    8. MFD
      February 8, 2023

      If fools throw their money around that is their problem.
      As a young man in the sixties I worked every hour I could find in the day and put that away to pay off my mortgage early.
      Now sitting in retirement that move now makes life so much more comfortable.
      You are right Sir John but we somehow have bred a nation of lazy moaners, who expect to be protected in their lives.

  2. Mark B
    February 8, 2023

    Good morning

    Sorry, Sir John but Santa has already been out delivering on peoples’ wishes. Maybe if you just stuck to your manifesto pledges things would not be so bad.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      February 8, 2023

      That was the manifesto pledge of the Conservative Government that we all fought for, and it was delivered, much to the anguish of Kinnock and fellow travellers.
      We have all lived off the money earned in that golden era until recently, when the money ran out.

  3. Nigl
    February 8, 2023

    A good reminder of what many Tories voted for. Regrettably, using your definitions, they got mostly Socialism. Zero capital retention, indeed reducing it to pay for a wasteful, inefficient and bloated State sector and zero enterprise.

    And just in one day, we read that HS2 is being chipped away again. When it was spun it was all about saving time through very high speeds. The Minister justifying the cutback says ā€˜who needs the time savingā€™ when people can work from laptops etc. Err couldnā€™t they do that when the project started? Of course. Just goes to show the deceit around the original decision.

    Secondly Sunak says a new Energy ministry is needed because the existing one is not doing what is required. Err didnā€™t the government abolish a very similar set up a few years ago?

    Sunak says we are not stupid. Indeed. we know incompetence when we see it.

  4. Narrow Shoulders
    February 8, 2023

    An aspirational piece but the stench of state intervention read large all the way through Sir john.

  5. Narrow Shoulders
    February 8, 2023

    On the subject of selling off the council houses, why at a discount? Why should an incumbent benefit from their already fortunate position in being a subsidised tenant?

    The price should have been fixed to provide two replacement homes, which must be built, and there should have been a covenant written into the deeds such that the relative discount to the market price was guaranteed to all future purchasers or indeed renters of that property. All should benefit from this discount on national assets, not just the first purchaser.

    1. Mike Wilson
      February 8, 2023

      Why a discount? Iā€™ll tell you why. The council house I grew up in apparently cost Ā£120 to build in 1918. By the time my mum was widowed in 1987 the rent had gone up to Ā£80 a week. Every week and a half, my mum paid the original build price in rent. My parents had paid for that house hundreds of times over. After my dad died the rent would have consumed most of her income. So my brothers and I bought the house for her. She got the full discount which took the purchase price down to about Ā£27k. So, having already paid for the house many, many times over, we also had to bung the council Ā£27k. I felt the discount had been well and truly earned. Why should a subsequent buyer benefit from the same discount? They havenā€™t been paying rent for decades.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        February 9, 2023

        Renters rent Mike – they don’t gain any capital in the property. It doesn’t matter how much the property cost to build especially as the value of the property will have raised significantly when your family occupied it so the Ā£120 you quote is spurious at best. The principle of renting is that you get no ownership. Mortgages are hire purchase not monthly rental.

        Your family benefited from occupation of a national asset. If the discount is offered and taken then that property should subsequently offer a similar percentage discount against the value at the time to the next purchaser. Your family should not be the only winners on that property.

    2. a-tracy
      February 8, 2023

      NS agree with you.
      One sold off over 7200 properties, garages, shops, and building land for Ā£65m. Less than Ā£7500 per house! The HA are now down to around 6200 properties! No new homes have been built by the HA. Ex Councillors who lose their place get put in as executives on the HA ex-teacher. What experience did they have of the housing rental sector, this is why nothing grows; they just want handouts all the time, they’re just ex-council workers on big fat pensions that keep getting millions to top up their pension pots when they make bad investments.

    3. Bloke
      February 8, 2023

      Council tenant obligations reached higher standards in earlier times, helping ensure decent neighbourhoods. The Right-to-Buy rebate value was linked to length of tenure, rewarding loyalty. Folk who own their homes tend to take more care of them. Their investment encourages them to preserve a quality environment, which would otherwise reduce their property value. A council property sold to its tenants may not deprive others: the home is occupied and may also prevent the tenantsā€™ children from needing other homes to rent.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        February 9, 2023

        All true Bole but does not address why subsequent buyers should benefit from the same percentage discount against market value. The original owners still make a relative profit on their investment but it is proportional to the price they paid not to the market value.

        1. Bloke
          February 9, 2023

          Subsequent buyers of previously-bought Right to Buy Council property pay the current market value at the time of their purchase. They buy on the open market, so do not benefit from the percentage discount their seller originally received.

          Many of those original folk qualifying for RtB had been living in their home across 3 decades as loyal rent-paying tenants. Some Councils had already received three times the value of the property in rental payments received.

          RtB purchasers often made profits, but many made losses depending on demand and values at the time they decided to sell. Many were stuck owning unsaleable flats in tower blocks as mortgages became unavailable above four floors in height. A few RtB purchasers made enormous gains, such as wardens living in a lodge or gatehouse within glorious parkland, but that was a quirk of a system with national rules.

    4. Mickey Taking
      February 8, 2023

      result? no buyers…

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        February 9, 2023

        That may not have been a bad thing given the houses were not replaced.

        1. Mickey Taking
          February 9, 2023

          agreed…

  6. Shirley M
    February 8, 2023

    We are so successful as a country that we can afford to provide a comfortable life for years on end for thousands of people who have never contributed a penny (illegal and legal immigrants). We can afford to give Ā£billions to other countries for the benefit of their people. We can afford to treat the whole world in our wonderful International Health Service. We can give Ā£billions to Ukraine to repel invaders.

    Such a pity we do none of that for the UK, or Brits!

    1. Timaction
      February 8, 2023

      Like we don’t experience the consequences of Tory mass immigrants policy. Dr appointment anyone, school places, dentists, building sites, congestion, foreign languages everywhere, cultural destruction, more taxes, pc/wokeness?

    2. MFD
      February 8, 2023

      But!! Shirley M we cannot afford our spendthrift prime ministers as we are not really a rich country, borrowing money to give it away is utterly the height of stupidity, we must stop all this waste, charity begins at home.

  7. dixie
    February 8, 2023

    Our problem is that your “ownership for the many” results in the “ownership of the many” by the few thanks to the City barrow boys and quite often those few are or become foreign interests.
    These foreign interests then under invest, use “internal transfer” and borrowings to extract the capital.
    The net result is very little local benefit nor ownership .. except of the debts.

  8. Bloke
    February 8, 2023

    Freedom enables people to belong in happiness together in their own country. Much of the quality of Thatcherā€™s legacy prevails. SJR was key within her vanguard, has been stalwart throughout, and still is.
    The present Conservative govt is lop-sided, with many deviant MPs pursuing muddle. We need a new leader with Thatcherā€™s thrust for better: to replace the present one who leads cherished UK values astray.

    1. Ian B
      February 8, 2023

      @Bloke +1
      Its called infiltration, a pastime of the Left – get in a disrupt those encouraging individual views and responsibility

  9. DOM
    February 8, 2023

    Net Zero is a conduit for Socialism.

    John, you’re morphed into a Socialist as have your party. Political convenience always trumps principle and belief

    All three main parties are utterly repulsive and a threat to our most basic freedoms

    And by the way, as a WHM why are we treated like lepers?

    1. glen cullen
      February 8, 2023

      Can you imagine Turkey and Syria after the earthquake if theyā€™ve been on the same net-zero track as the UK
      All the solar panels broken, all the wind-turbines fallen over, all of the emergency vehicle unable to recharge their batteries, power and energy supply broken or interrupted for heating and cooking
      The utopia net-zero world is a dangerous imagine

  10. Donna
    February 8, 2023

    No Sir John.

    YOU believe all this. I believe all this. Most of the people responding to your blog believe all this.

    But most of your colleagues in Parliament no longer believe all this – if they ever did. Watch what they do; ignore what they say. The “WE believe” is patently untrue.

    Your Party is acting on a false premise. It is no longer a Conservative Party. It promises it will deliver Conservative policies in order to get elected, but then implements left-wing and/or “green” ones which are unaffordable and are driving people into penury.

    The clear-out which is coming is entirely deserved. It’s just a tragedy that our corrupted electoral system means we will just get more of the same from Labour. But that’s not MY fault, or anyone else’s who refuses to vote for your treacherous, deceitful Not-a-Conservative-Party.

    1. Timaction
      February 8, 2023

      Indeed. I think it’s worse than that. All trust has gone for the legacies and MSM. We see and live it every day. We need radical Reform.

    2. MFD
      February 8, 2023

      Agee 100% Donna

  11. Nottingham Lad Himself
    February 8, 2023

    John’s party replaced confidence based on job security with that based on lax credit secured against a deliberately-pumped residential property bubble, the second feeding on the first in a vicious loop.

    This has made home ownership an impossible dream for millions of young, and the many borrowers can only just meet the capital repayments on their loans, so are terribly exposed to interest rates.

    It has all hit the buffers, and up until now the Tories approach has been that the Only Cure Is More.

    The Dilithium Crystals cannae take it, Cap’n.

    1. Donna
      February 8, 2023

      It was Blair/Brown who deliberately ramped up the residential property bubble whilst at the same time importing millions of low wage eastern European immigrants who were prepared to live 4/5/6 to a house … thus pricing out young Brits who wanted to get a foot on the ladder through a combination of low wages/high living costs.

      The Not-a-Conservative-Party simply continued with the same policy. It’s one of the reasons why the working class voted so enthusiastically for Brexit and to control immigration, which the Not-a-Conservative-Party has refused to do.

    2. Peter Wood
      February 8, 2023

      The alternative ? Own nothing and you will be happy?
      State owns everything and we’re all worker bees for the good of….
      Do wake up and accept the lessons of history of the socialist experiment.

    3. a-tracy
      February 8, 2023

      Rochdale BH Transfer
      13,664 homes, 1.606 garages, 83 shops, 8 community centres, 40 playgrounds + a significant amount of land, inc. potential development sites. Sold for Ā£25.5m 19/03/12 valued using Tenanted market valuation formula.
      The tory government wrote off: Ā£220m housing debt. , (housing subsidy purposes Ā£241m).

      56% of the tenants, not the whole community paying rates into that council, that already collectively owned them as a local asset!

      Huge investment promised Ā£685m over 30 years. Yet a child died in a reported mouldy home. Ā£22.833 million per year. Have they already spent Ā£228.33 on the homes and building new homes for the millions of young families in Rochdale?

      I think this is another reason why social housing is hitting the buffers.

    4. Narrow Shoulders
      February 8, 2023

      (:

  12. Ashley
    February 8, 2023

    Stella McCartney awarded CBE for her services to ā€œfashion and sustainabilityā€ by the deluded climate alarmist private jet, Aston Martin amd Helicopter hypocrite one King Charles I read. Fashion is surely almost the opposite of ā€œsustainabilityā€ all about getting people to buy something the did not need just for ā€œfashionsā€ reasons or to show off to their friends. Just not this years colour, label or style dear.

    Goes together like Energy security and net zero. Or cheap reliable on demand energy and the so called ā€œrenewablesā€. Or Greg Hands and a real Brexit or eating loads of Ice Cream and slimming.

  13. John McDonald
    February 8, 2023

    Sir John you may have wanted it but it did more damage to the country then your theory suggests. In practice it just sold off state assets at nock down prices. Most people get a lower pension now from the state because encouraged to move some of their State pension to the Stock Market.
    Individual Share ownership moved from individuals to foreign Corporations.
    The Thatcher theory did not stand the test of time in the real world.
    It is a basic fact that competition brings improvement and is a check on over pricing. BUT it can also be a destructive force, and achieve the opposite when applied artificially by the State.

  14. Gabe
    February 8, 2023

    Correct. You say:- Socialism is the politics of envy, where people would rather everyone was worse off if less unequal. Conservatism is the politics of aspiration, where we want the many to be better off by their own efforts and the vulnerable minority to be well looked after through state action.

    Except this government is clearly a big state, tax & regulate to death socialist one. Also a net zero rip off energy one and a war on small businesses and motorists one. The current tax & benefit system deters aspiration and encourages people to live off the backs of others so many do. It also encourages the rich and hard working to leave or just not to bother.

  15. Ian wragg
    February 8, 2023

    If you want a can do society stop wasting so much of our money and let us decide how it’s spent.
    Government is a recipe for waste.
    Fund some conservative values ans do away with this left wing Consocialism

    1. Peter Wood
      February 8, 2023

      Under Bunter Boris, Sunak as Chancellor, we had a PM who had no interest in even common sense economics, he would spend every penny you offered him. Sunak should have been the gatekeeper, but it appears through nievety and obedience to Bunter, he just created money to burn.
      We cannot afford such politicians.

      1. Mark B
        February 9, 2023

        Sunak is a ‘Yes Man’. Savid Javid MP when Chancellor refused to play the game, Johnson wanted to play and got the boot.

    2. Ashley
      February 8, 2023

      +1

  16. Dave Andrews
    February 8, 2023

    Ownership for all. Great, I like it. Can we householders own the monopoly water services we depend on, rather than a foreign company? Can season ticket holders and railway employees own the rail companies they need for travel and employment? Can we British own the gas and oil reserves within the country and get a return on the sales?
    It seems not. It seems the government thinks it owns these assets and can sell them off to pay for vanity projects like HS2, and even then not be able to balance the books and have to borrow yet more.
    And no, I don’t mean nationalisation. I mean private companies owned by the people who have an interest in what they produce.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      February 8, 2023

      We all bought shares in the privatised water companies. We did own all the service companies, directly – remember ā€˜tell Sidā€™?

    2. a-tracy
      February 8, 2023

      What Dave like the Railways? Privately owned but wanting more subsidy off the taxpayer because they can’t get enough customers paying the right rate to meet their pay demands.
      At least we don’t get water cut off all the time like we get ambulance services cut and hospital emergency services cut off.

      1. Richard II
        February 9, 2023

        That;’s nice to know, a-tracy, but where I live Thames Water have cut off our water supply ten times in just over three years.

        1. a-tracy
          February 9, 2023

          Sorry to hear that Richard were you cut off for whole days? What was the reason they gave?

  17. agricola
    February 8, 2023

    So what happened to Conservatism following the wet coupe against Margaret Thatcher. It lost its way in some social democratic drive to please all the people all the time and in fact please very few who believe what you espouse. It has even striven to shed democracy. First in its handling of the 2016 referendum result and then by bowing to the globalist establishment to rid itself of a PM voted for by its own membership. The next step your consocialists are working towards is an Orwellian digital currency. Will it be in your manifesto in 2024 or are you planning a referendum on it. One thing is for sure, you have travelled a million miles from Margaret’s idea of creating a society in which everyone owns a slice. After a lifetime you have lost my vote.

    1. agricola
      February 8, 2023

      You really do not like the cold hard truth, and censor/moderate by omission.

  18. Geoffrey Berg
    February 8, 2023

    I am sympathetic to popular capitalism and widespread home owner occupation. It should be argued against the left that if a social house is sold to its occupier the proud new owner does not remove it from the national housing stock but continues to live in it as before – what changes is the ownership and not the physical house, so there is no need whatsoever to build a new house to ‘replace’ it. However it will not be possible nor enduring (most who bought low priced shares in gas, water etc., sold them relatively soon afterwards) for everybody to be part of popular capitalism.
    However the most important core message is irrespective of who owns the capital, Capitalism benefits everyone because a capitalist economy is a demand economy that caters to people’s wishes and is quite efficient because of competition in the market place whereas a non-capitalist command economy is run inefficiently by a monopoly government irrespective of what people actually want to buy. That should be the political right’s message to everyone.

  19. Michael Saxton
    February 8, 2023

    Philosophically I agree with you Sir John, but when I look at our energy supplier, our water company and our railways I do wonder whether privatisation has served working people and their families especially well? I suspect the concept has been used to make huge profits for the owners at the expense of working people?

    1. Bloke
      February 8, 2023

      Shares in energy, water, rail, telecom and others were available to the British public. Many expected the opportunity for early profit and gained by selling their shares at their optimum value. Shares are a gamble. If you envision substantive profits you are free to buy shares if you wish, hold them or sell them at what you regard as the top of the market. Alternatively, take the risk of loss plus commission. Youā€™re free to choose to own or disregard.

  20. Ian B
    February 8, 2023

    Sir John
    “Ownership for all” – Of course, it is also a reminder that it is the ‘man in the mirror’ that is responsible for all our outcomes.

  21. Ian B
    February 8, 2023

    Sir John

    You seemed to be brilliantly on form yesterday, I am proud to have you as my MP.
    Just need a few more Conservatives to step up and do their duty and represent the people they serve.

    Thank you

    1. turboterrier
      February 8, 2023

      Ian B
      Just need a few more Conservatives to step up and do their duty and represent the people they serve.

      Well said pal , you have a great sense of humour. 90% of what we have got on both sides ain’t worth a rub.
      It is an insult to those few that are worthy of the name.

  22. Nigl
    February 8, 2023

    And in other news is it possible to contact John Major so I can tell this pitiful entitled old twerp, that his interventions are not wanted, not needed and totally out of touch. Didnā€™t he sell us out at Maastricht? Hasnā€™t changed.

    1. Ian B
      February 8, 2023

      @Nigl +1, or more like 100 times over in agreement

    2. Donna
      February 8, 2023

      We had Heseltine popping up the other day to tell “the peasants” that Brexit was a disaster.
      Now Major.
      What’s the betting Blair sticks his head above the parapet again in a couple of days to tell the people how stupid they were.

      They’re like the un-dead.

  23. Aden
    February 8, 2023

    The issue is the 20% of income asset stripped from the poor to pay those off the book pension debts. Then the other 10% of tax going on debts. The wealth inequality, low take home pay, pensioner poverty, the care crisis and a lack of investment are a direct consequence of the pension fraud

    There is no palatable fix

  24. beresford
    February 8, 2023

    And yet many of your colleagues are following the WEF policies of restriction of personal choice, diet and travel, increased state control of speech and action, and ownership of all property by large corporations. ‘You will own nothing and be happy’.

    1. Ian B
      February 8, 2023

      @beresford +1

    2. Sharon
      February 8, 2023

      Next down the line in the WEF control business is central bank digital currency. That appears very much to not be just carrying on as now, minus going to the ATM! Thereā€™s so much with digital currency that the bank can do to us! None of it will benefit us!

      I for one, am quite happy having different bank accounts for different things and using cash when I choose!

    3. Peter
      February 8, 2023

      beresford,

      Agreed. ā€˜Levelling upā€™ and ā€˜levelling downā€™ is not the issue if a small elite are going to take it all anyway.

    4. Julian Flood
      February 8, 2023

      The correct quotation is “YOU will own nothing and THEY will be happy.”

      JF

      1. Mickey Taking
        February 9, 2023

        that sounds much more accurate.

  25. Walt
    February 8, 2023

    But the Council or government did not build a new house to replace the one sold. So-called ‘affordable’ housing built by private contractors is often a poor cramped substitute. And the privatisations were ok in some respects but not in others, with the results that we have today: filthy rivers, sewage in our seas and on our beaches, broadband below the standards of our peers, all from decades of pursuing profit at the expense of underinvestment by privatised former public bodies, some of which now are in foreign ownership.

    1. Anselm
      February 8, 2023

      In the 1950s at Peterborough I had black grease on my knees and elbows from the grime. The cathedral was black. We used to count the tunkets as they drifted past, along with the sewage when the river went red. If you fell into the river it was an automatic stomach wash-out.
      Today the river is so clean there are swans; you can see the pebbles on the bottom; and I am clean all over!

  26. Cuibono
    February 8, 2023

    Old age is not secure when the tax burden of owning a house becomes unaffordable.
    And oneā€™s low interest savings are inflated away.
    Not to mention the fact that workmen are very thin on the ground and pick and choose jobs.

    1. Mike Wilson
      February 8, 2023

      Indeed. Council tax is an outrage now.

    2. Mickey Taking
      February 8, 2023

      not to mention the Local authorities raising council taxes to become unaffordable, and basic water and power supplies following suit. Pension income doesn’t cover these costs.

  27. Anselm
    February 8, 2023

    Protestantism is the bedrock of our society.
    If you go to societies which are not Protestant Christian, then remarks like “A successful free enterprise society can afford to help the vulnerable with the costs of a decent life,” are simply pie in the sky. God, as we all know, made them high and lowly and ordered their estate. But that implies an obligation to love your neighbour as yourself. Even the hopeless.
    The thing about Protestantism is that you are free. Free to help. Free to teach. Free to be a doctor or nurse. to take the risks. To change things. To do what you want to do. Always within the constraints of loving God first and your neighbour second.
    Take that freedom away – and professionals turn into strikers; trusted professionals turns into numbers on tick boxes; medicine turns into helpful people fleeing the wards for the offices and nice expensive suits.
    The government is not helping here. And it is growing more and more interfering, more and more expensive.

  28. Ian B
    February 8, 2023

    From the Telegraph – ā€˜Red Wall Rottweilerā€™ Lee Anderson appointed deputy Tory chairman.
    Rottweiler? Just because he is a Conservative?
    As suggested by comments on the Telegraph he should have been the Chairman or even better the PM.
    Unfortunately he will be destroyed by the Socialists that surround him ā€“ may be that was the idea.

    1. Donna
      February 9, 2023

      He’s too outspoken for the LibCONs in Government. He’s been given “a little job” well away from public view so he can be controlled and silenced.

      Better to have him just inside the tent, pizzing out ……than on the back benches saying what he thinks.

  29. forthurst
    February 8, 2023

    There is a council ward near me consisting of a mixture of cheap private housing, council housing and ex-council housing. The council housing accommodates foreign invaders who obviously get priority. A lot of the ex-council housing is owned by parasitical private landlords accommodating poor English at double the rent of the council housing who obviously don’t qualify for council housing but in some cases qualify for rent support.

  30. William Long
    February 8, 2023

    I agree with almost all you say. I have a difference regarding home ownership, because there are clearly legitimate and sensible reasons for someone preferring to rent rather than buy, so the State should not try to skew the picture, but enable individuals to choose what suits them best by keeping the alternatives as financially neutral as possible.
    Sadly though, to say that Conservatism ‘is’ the politics of aspiration, is very clearly no longer true, and indeed it really only became so under Mrs Thatcher, and things have been drifting back ever since. You cannot aspire to anything under the present regime, because you know that if you achieve an aspiration, the result will quickly be taken away from you. As for ‘Levelling up’, this was a good catch phrase for an important concept, but it has just become an excuse for more rules and regulations.
    I do not think we are ever going to get the excellent values you set out, from the Conservative party, because its leaders show no signs of believing in them. We need something new.

  31. Ian B
    February 8, 2023

    Mr Zelensky today will be illustrating to the HoC what it is to be a man that believes in his Country. Lets hope some of it rubs off.

  32. glen cullen
    February 8, 2023

    Great words SirJ, you just need to find a conservative party to sell it too, the closest party today is the Reform Party

  33. RDM
    February 8, 2023

    The like the sentiment, but really?

    None of the councils have replenished their stock of Social Housing!

    Rents are above the ‘cost of living’ for large numbers of people!

    And, if people are forced to rent, then they can’t save!

    Which leads me to why people are so resentful, they are stuck funding the pensions of greedy landlords!

    People are not going to accept it!

    The Conservative Party promised to build 300,000 houses per years, it’s too late!

    And, everyone can see it was you the blocked the Bill to allow government to force build what is needed!

    And, you have NOT solved the Nimbi problem or the produced the relevant new Planning legislation?

    All too late!

    Your only hope; You will need a program of building Social housing just to augment the ‘left behind’ housing requirements, and hope any new system will start working sometime during the next Parliament (after the next GE), Or, Labour will start building them from the new higher Taxes?

    RDM

    1. anon
      February 12, 2023

      And, if people are forced to rent, then they canā€™t save!
      And with means testing and deliberate inflation and financial repression , add a law abiding taxpayers and they will own nothing an be happy.
      Result!

      Meanwhile dilute any public resources by unrestricted immigration to the point the service is no longer public but is available only if you are referred or preferred.

  34. Jamie
    February 8, 2023

    There will alwsys be a large number of people in this country who will never be able to look after themselves either financially economically or any other way – they will be for the most part the workers in society, good honest decent people who pay taxes but who just cannot commit to taking on a mortgage for instance – they live from day to day, from pay packet to pay packet – they will always need looking after for housing and health matters. And if Mrs Thatcher in her time could not see that when she proceeded to sell off the council houses without thinking about the needs of the next generation well then it tell’s a lot about Mrs Thatcher pea brain approach. Ownership for all is bullshit – it’s like the mirror image of saying collectivism for all is good

  35. Wokinghamite
    February 8, 2023

    The privatisation issues of the Thatcher era were fine, but has the objective of direct ownership of other shares been built on since then? Today there seem to be obstacles to direct ownership by small investors. Stockbrokers are no longer so keen to deal in paper share certificates, yet some of the alternatives seem to be in danger of departing from the original Thatcher aims of direct ownership. Small investors may be encouraged to open nominee accounts, but, if they do, the shares will not be registered in their name and it will probably be difficult for them to participate in voting and attending meetings; in addition, there may be a theoretical extra layer of risk in the sense that the stockbroker may go bust.

    Should not wider ownership of shares be a part of levelling up discussions?

  36. Original Richard
    February 8, 2023

    ā€œWe advertised the share offers direct to the public, and many bought their share in a great national company like British Telecom or British Gas.ā€

    At the time, being younger and very naĆÆve, I was totally in favour of denationalisation and the ability of the public to buy shares in these companies.

    However, I did not realise it would mean that much of our infrastructure is now owned by foreign governments, at least one of which has been described by our security services as a ā€œhostile stateā€.

    I would have thought that ā€œtrueā€ denationalisation would have meant that the shares were only available to UK nationals.

  37. Ralph Corderoy
    February 8, 2023

    ā€˜It does not give capital to the poor by taking away more of the capital and income of the rich.ā€™

    Nor does it give capital to the poor by having a 2% inflation target instead of allowing natural deflation, say of 2%, caused by innovation. An inflation target is a tax. A compounding one which hits those who may be able to scrap a little savings together each year the hardest by stopping them ever building capital.

  38. Ian B
    February 8, 2023

    Wokingham Borough Council
    @WokinghamBC
    Weā€™ve launched a Planet Pledge campaign to inspire and encourage people to make changes to help address the climate emergency šŸŒ

    This new style Council, spends all our money on Liberal Democratic proper gander, while ensuring neglect of the duties they are paid to do.

    Roads, footpaths filthy. Pavement parking and blocking the norm ā€“ pedestrians have to drive as pedestrian walkways are now under council policy not for them. The contridiction, addressing the non- climate emergancy with lame publicity while doing the opposite in practice. This is the Liberal Democrat Way of management

    1. Ian B
      February 8, 2023

      @Ian B I can walk down the road(on the road) upsetting motorists, but the Council advocates pedestrian walkway blocking so these are no longer available for the eco saving pedestrian.

    2. Mickey Taking
      February 9, 2023

      This new control of council, LibnoDems got invited to a special presentation on a 200 odd Homes controversal proposal (field) at the end of Maidensfield, Winnersh. They reported in their latest leaflet that they declined due to not wanting to appear either for or against!! Why not attend it and understand what was being proposed? Then they might be better informed! Breathtakingly stupid.

  39. Julian Flood
    February 8, 2023

    The problems revealed by all-out privatisation, the reliance on the market above all, might have been anticipated by wiser heads than mine, but I have been surprised at the negative consequences. I was involved for a short time with social housing, and the bodies which had been gifted with million pound property portfolios, and freed from local democratic control, rapidly transmogrified into something
    barely distinguishable from deep Socialism. Tenants’ interests were still there but the core drivers – maximum exploitation of the assets, expansion of the empire – were dominant. When it came down to it, the tenants were powerless.

    There must be a middle way between the current Conservative interpretation of Thatcherism – flog everything including your granny for Soylent Green as long as it makes a bigger profit – and the grey, deadening hand of uncaring Socialism. Looking at the slow motion train crash that is HS2, the Wild West development of wind and solar farms regardless of need, and the coming damage to our energy security being baked in by agreements with the French government’s nuclear poodle, it’s obvious that pseudo-Thatcherism has reached the end of the road. Outright socialism has always failed.

    What then? How about trying a pragmatic approach which does the best it can for the people of the UK?

    JF

  40. Bert Young
    February 8, 2023

    Inspiration and opportunity were the sort of stimuli that existed under the leadership of Thatcher . Her own family background from shop to Westminster was also an horizon people admired . Today circumstances have changed and the political and economic disruption have created a level of despair that it will be almost impossible to emerge from . Lessons have to be learned from the past but without trust and capability in 10 Downing Street there will be a steep hill to climb .

  41. ChrisS
    February 8, 2023

    I watched the transformation of local council estates in amazement.
    Firstly, buyers always replaced their front doors, then it was new windows and then their gardens were transformed. Scruffy grass verges were improved, and now the estates no longer look like the squalid ghettos they were before the right to buy. The policy was truly transformational.

    BUT under Conservative-led governments since 2010, just as much as under Gordon Brown’s stewardship of the Treasury, the whole concept of free enterprise and self-improvement has all but disappeared.
    The repeated attacks on private landlords trying to replace their previous pension schemes by acquiring a few buy to let properties have almost all been perpetrated by Osborne and his successors. Now Hunt is even taking away Capital Gains Tax Allowances !

    IR35, Self-employed quarterly tax returns, the freezing of tax allowances, and much else has been deliberately designed to destroy private enterprise.

    I am afraid that the Conservative Party can no longer be considered to be a beacon for private enterprise.
    Frankly, Britain, during Tony Blair’s early years in office, was a better place to do business than under Osborne, Sunak and Hunt. How can your party have allowed this to happen ?

  42. paul
    February 8, 2023

    Its all bad news, russains have made a break out at Blahodatne and froming large bridge head also to the north of that and forming another bridge head to Sivers,k as well as east of Bakktmut, thats all it takes just one little break out and it all over. I have a another bad feeling about stock market coming on.

  43. Cuibono
    February 8, 2023

    I think that any sane Tory knows what to do to improve their poll ratings.
    Cut taxes and stop being woke.
    Just stop itā€¦be Conservatives again!

    1. Chris S
      February 9, 2023

      Absolutely right !

    2. Mickey Taking
      February 9, 2023

      Oh! what a controversial proposal. Sir John would approve.

  44. formula57
    February 8, 2023

    Certainly ” We want a can do society, a society where the strivers are the heroes…”. Where in that will fit those of today’s young people who expect never to enter the job market?

  45. mancunius
    February 8, 2023

    i vividly recall my sheer disbelief when the Thatcher government – in pursuit of Tory votes in Labour boroughs – handed houses and flats to those who just happened to live there (including well-paid union officials, MPs, civil servants and local government officers) at ridiculously low prices relative to the neighbourhoods. The occupant ‘new owners’ then immediately sold on the properties at the market rate, making a vast profit, at the unfair expense of those who had clambered onto the housing ladder unaided by councils or government.
    The urban councils made sure they retained a 50%+ ownership quota in blocks and converted houses – a provision that with the aid of the Conservative Housing Bill enabled them to hang on to the true ownership – the freehold.
    This electorally opportunistic sale of council properties has and had nothing whatsoever to do with capitalism, and it tarnished the government that engineered it.

  46. a-tracy
    February 8, 2023

    Selling off council housing. Its all fine in theory, but in practice, some decent people have neighbours that are like Onslow out of Keeping up Appearances. A small three-bedroom home with six overflowing bins, regularly overgrown gardens, an old 16t van just parked in a garden, what looks like a shed bigger than the house footprint and rubbish outside in their front gardens. Broken, unrepaired fences and a fridge in the garden, and smashed glass in the front door with a cardboard fix job.

    As well, the council houses were sold to tenants who had lived on housing benefits alone for 18 years and sold at massive discounts to them and their new live in boyfriend. Ā£30k for a 3-bed semi will do nicely, having not contributed 1p of rent themselves as a single parent.

    I know people that rent out their council house, claiming to live there on the census when they haven’t lived in the property for four years or more. There is loads of it that goes on in London; one couple lives in France!

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 9, 2023

      Tenants in Grenfell (the fire block disaster) had sub rented out their flats.

      1. a-tracy
        February 9, 2023

        No-one ever checks, these people found dead in flats years after they died. The HAs picking up the rent direct from the benefits paid into bank accounts unchecked for years on end. Our systems are pathetic. Our annual checks on housing standards pathetic. Our government just uses our money to pay up for substandard accommodation to HAs and some private landlords.

  47. Christine
    February 8, 2023

    Maybe a win for tenants but not for the taxpayer. Why do some lucky people get subsided housing whereas others, many on lower incomes have to pay market value? It’s time all council housing paid market value this would encourage tenants on higher incomes to move out freeing up houses for those who can’t afford it. The benefits system should be the safety net.

  48. The Prangwizard
    February 8, 2023

    Agree with all that, but it is now just history, and there are only a handfull of MPs and leaders who act in order to bring it about again. We need example not just theorising.

    How many home based and owned businesses can we all take a share in? Many, most, which once were available have been sold off to foreign interests long ago with enthusiam by the Tory party MPs and ministers. That’s where they are now. Manufacture and intellectual property is long gone. Foreign parties and governments have control over us as a result.

    Maybe our host will write regularly to end such failure continuing?

    I have just had the pleasure of listening to Suella Braverman in the Commons, speaking clearly and bravely knocking back the subversive critics of the tackling of Islamic terrorism and making it clear where the danger is.

    It would be nice if we had people like her who spoke determinably about protecting our national business interests and identity.
    There was a big fuss made about a car battery factory a while back, how it would place us in a great position, but it went broke. The usual government bragging was empty as usual. And guess what, an Australian company is now after it.

    Also big bragging about a deal including Australia and a new miltary aircraft. The PM was asked if it would be made in England. He did not answer so clearly it will be made abroad. Keeps us ‘green’ no doubt, but heading to our making nothing much.

    1. The Prangwizard
      February 10, 2023

      If I may, rather late however, mention Sirious Minerals. Started in Yorkshire to mine a high quality fertiliser. They were underground having done nearly all the preparatory work. They had UK shareholders but they found themselves short of about Ā£400m. This Tory outfit refused them help and the company was then bought by Anglo-American mines.

      So as a result we lost control of a massive national asset. Tories are like that, it’s their policy to sell everything we have.

      1. mancunius
        February 10, 2023

        No, sorry, I completely disagree that the UK’s taxpayers should have bailed out a privately owned and under-capitalized potash fertilizer mining company to the tune of the necessary $600 million the company demanded. AngloAmerican took it over, saved the project, and fairly indemnified its shareholders. Anyone who wants to can still invest in Sirius via shares in AngloAmerican, which is listed on the FTSE.
        AngloAm is investing further large amounts (hundreds of millions of dollars) in the N. Yorkshire mines and plant, which through export orders will generate an estimated century of massive income for the UK. The project is regenerating an area that was starved of jobs.

  49. Your comment is awaiting moderation
    February 8, 2023

    The Tories were given an 80 seat majority in 2019 on a prospectus of implementing Brexit.
    Now Rasheed Sanuok has appointed ardent remainer Greg Hands as Tory Chairman.
    Do the Tories intend to betray the trust place in them in 2019?

    1. glen cullen
      February 8, 2023

      There three main objectives of the Tory 2019 election
      1. Complete Brexit ā€“ Still incomplete
      2. Reduce Immigration ā€“ Still high and increasing
      3. Never increase taxation ā€“ Taxes are and continue to rise

    2. Mark B
      February 9, 2023

      No. They are going to let Labour do that. We will ‘rejoin’ the EU in all but name. Slowly adding one part at a time.

    3. Mickey Taking
      February 9, 2023

      Trust? – I think that ship sailed a long time ago.

  50. Lynn Atkinson
    February 8, 2023

    Bakhmut has fallen. Please stop funding and thereby extending this terrible war! 250,000 Ukrainians are dead! Is that not enough? Let the people of the ancient Russian lands own their own country, and live under their own people.
    That is what we British voted for in Brexit! We have No RIGHT to deny the people of Donbas, Kherson, Crimea, t same human right.

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 9, 2023

      Are you happy to allow Italy, well Rome, to come and take over England?

  51. outsider
    February 8, 2023

    Dear Sir John,
    Th right to buy scheme was surely the most successful exercise in “levelling up” ever taken, spreading real wealth to millions. What a contrast to the malevolent vision of a future when ordinary people own nothing.

    Sadly, the hope of creating mass share ownership through privatisation proved transitory and ultimately a failure. Once the selling fees had been booked, there was no money for the City in millions of people sitting on shares and receiving dividends. And the companies did not like the expense of having vast numbers of tiny shareholdings. So the new small holders were either bought out or pushed into funds and the remainder shunted into nominee accounts that break the connexion between owner and company. Direct share owership is narrower than before.
    The priority now, perhaps, is to give public sector workers, civil servants and MPs an interest in the prosperity of business through properly funded pension schemes.

  52. glen cullen
    February 8, 2023

    Home Office ā€“ 7th Feb 2023
    Migrants detected 204
    Boats detected 5
    Our government have produced a new web page in a new format (to confuse the general people)
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats-last-7-days

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 9, 2023

      definition of ‘small boats’ ? Why not say (inflatable)dinghies? Are they a bit coy about it?

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