Tony, the philosophy, long since forgotten and then smothered completely by Mrs T’s Tories, was that a landlord should receive enough rent to pay for his outgoings and make very little profit. His profit was to come from the long term capital investment. I am not blaming you because I suspect you in particular and almost all landlords in general have not got a clue about that reasoning behind rent control. You cannot know what you don’t know. But you can see, Chiswick in particular over the last 40 years and more recently Kew, whoops sorry I mean good old Brentford, have changed as regards capital values beyond the wildest dreams of man. As soon as Mrs T told the City that the lending rules had changed we saw a gradual change from long term investment thinking to how could we make a quick buck. It’s human nature that if greed is not controlled things will get out of control. My knowledge of ancient history is now too dim, but the tulip crash (in the 1400s) comes up in these kinds of conversation illustrating the effects of greed. I don’t want to know if you self certified your ability to repay your borrowing (egged on by some slimy agent), but I certainly thought that it was the most outrageous practice because it was making more people homeless, and ruining the chances of the next generation to buy their first house. Before Mrs T you could borrow 3 to 3.5 times your salary. If we had stayed within that market imposed rule I am convinced that there would have been less homelessness and smaller waiting lists. Her opening of the doors led to increasing but sometimes imperceptible greed resulting in the crash in 2008. Seeds take a long time to grow to maturity.I agree that the workless should take full responsibility for themselves and I sure many do. But the so called level playing field is/has slipped from their reach. And Councils are now trying to think up desperate remedies helped along by pressures from Capitalists who have persuaded the Coalition to relax planning laws. I get pretty cross if a key worker sublets their affordable home. I had it explained once by a teacher. If they didn’t get the income they wanted (subletting plus their so called low income), then they would leave London and go back home. The attitude was that teachers rule. I thought to myself that it was part of the must have it now attitude - as I ran my eye over her designer clothes, pricey bag and latest phone.Your opinion is that the rents should be controlled by market forces. We have at least 2M people on our waiting lists – and say about 0.5M in all London. So I say your view does/has not worked at all. It’s a major social injustice that so many are in poor housing, and you may have seen elements of poverty when you lived in Social Housing. The evidence is right in front of your eyes. And has been for a long time. Until the 1930s the London poor (relatively) lived in tenements or cheap hotels or digs or with relatives. The 1930s ribbon development was the greatest boon to the less well off classes. They had a freehold home with some modcons for the first time for ever. Cheap affordable with a garden privacy, space, public transport, and 20 years later starting to buy their very own sit up and beg Ford Popular The poorer classes had their very own mini Englishman’s castle, churches libraries schools bowls tennis football fields etc, etc. These people must have thought they were in seventh heaven compared with their parents. They had a new base from which to prosper and that is just what happened. But Rent controls were there and so property continued to be affordable. Until then the 10% to 15% wealthy owned the freeholds, but no way could they starve people en mass onto the streets. But now some 65% of people own their own property; of course that is much more difficult to control, unless the government takes a firm line.Quite a bit of posh snooty tight fisted, tight streeted Chiswick in the 60’s and 70’s was a dump housing a lot of poor people. As for Hammersmith – you got through that as quickly as you might whistle through Harlesden. Fulham was very mixed and Ealing was a subletters paradise with houses altered into HMOs. Streatham Clapham Islington and Hoxton and Hackney (with a few exceptions) were beyond the pale.So now we have housing shortages and your remedy is more housing. Because there is no more space the young have to live downmarket in rotten little smelly high rise new boxes which cost much more than owning a little house. Our Planners have such low class standards. But I and so many lived in those little Englishmens’ baby castles, and we don’t want to be surrounded by high rise which we associate with isolation, slums and little control; and we want our children to have decent housing as we had, and we want the return of social cohesion instead of the non integration which goes with multiculturism.. So we shall oppose monstrosities and rapid overcrowding and clogging up our services because we have first hand knowledge of better standards. Consequently building accommodation on a grand scale in Outer London is just not going to happen fast enough. So your rents will stay high enough to deny many a home to the less fortunate but responsible minded hard working people. And the rents will be pushed even higher by the new foreign millionaires buying in Mayfair etc.The answer is the New Homes approach (Milton Keynes etc). Interesting proposal the other day. Let some of the money in the pension funds pay for a building programme. That has to be really strictly controlled otherwise tulip mania greed will destroy the funds. Such a proposal does not have to cost the Government very much money, I suggest. Such a proposal would kickstart the economy. In the meantime social justice (you have direct experience of this) means to me that you should again be controlled. It’s part of the taking responsibility thing. But you still are better off and you will probably bequeath much to your children if you have (or will have) any. Sorry.
George Knox ● 4906d