The Bleeding Of Britain and the People (from the Imaginations of Alfred N.Muggins)

By David Kirtley

Fri, 06 Sep 2024
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5 comments
 

11/8/24

    Modern Britain was being given away to corruptions of all sorts, including its people. Its houses were sold to the highest bidders, regardless of whence they came. Russian Oligarchs (and God only knew how they had acquired their wealth, which was supposed to ‘belong to the people’ in Soviet times!) bought up properties in London and places in many countries too. That had presumably been put a stop to by Putin’s senseless and extremely costly (particularly in blood!) war with erstwhile cohabiter of the USSR, Ukraine! But probably only temporarily while the British Government was supporting Ukraine’s rights to freedom.

    Likewise over the years rich Arab oil families or states had bought up properties, particularly in London, but it could be anywhere in Britain. At worst they left the properties unoccupied and empty, as mere investment pieces on the monopoly board, to buy and sell for profit. At best they filled them with tenants, but rents rose in accordance with the supposed property market.

    Where they usually could get away with it higher rents led to more purchases of properties, on more ‘buy to let’ mortgages. So these investors (not necessarily Arabs or Russians) were using rents and rent rises to fund their own acquisitions of further properties. Perhaps it would have been better if rents had been kept low (by legislation?), and resident buyers had been able to purchase properties for their own use at reasonable prices. Then large numbers of tenants could have benefited without the rich landlords expanding their property empires at someone else’s expense?

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Chronicles Of Mr Alfred Muggins
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Talecatching
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Comments

Submitted by David Kirtley on

Alfred's paranoia is increasing as he theorises just how little control the actual people seem to have over their own nation and lives, as the demands of the already rich seem to take precedence over ordinary lives!

Submitted by celticman on

housing is a mess. the poorest can't affort it. The state subsidises the poor and gives money to the rich to house the poor. Crazy. 

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

It really is a mess isn't it. That is another aspect of it, the state funding of tenants' rent because they can't afford it. It is absurd, as by doing so the landlords are being made even richer, so they can buy even more properties. I am not saying there should not be state support when needed, but the rents are just out of control. It doesn't help that so many, in both Houses of Parliament are also landlords to a larger or lesser extent themselves. They have no personal incentive to control rents or stop the waste of taxpayers funds. 

Submitted by marandina on

It looks odds on that CGT will be aligned with personal rates of taxation at 20/40/45% at the next budget. Probably with immediate effect from 30th October. Landlords are already selling up in droves. Labour in Wales are levying 200% council tax on second homes leading to...owners selling up in droves. Problem is...all these properties being available to buy at prices first time buyers still can't afford or even get close to affording.

 

The obvious, proper solution is to build affordable housing rather than artificially distorting the market. I just hope the plans to deliver 1.5 million new homes in England over the next five years is done in the right way and not by concreting over vast swathes of Green Belt land.

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

Not that I, or Alfred, are up to date on current tax complexities, but it seems to us that if they are essentially raising Capital Gains Tax to be taxed at personal tax rates that may be a kind of increase on already high earners, which could be good. It may be an opportunity for spreading ownership to wider sets of people, but on the other hand it may just allow big property individuals and companies to amass even more properties. Maybe it is time to bring in more drastic laws limiting residential property to be bought by residents in future instead of growing property /landlord concerns. (Buy to let mortgages enabling landlords to build up even grteater property ownership should probably be banned.) 

None of these landlords actually have to sell so why should we feel sorry for them? I do think this Welsh Labour policy of charging 200% council tax on second homes sounds a great way to get some to sell, or pay more tax, which should help to drive down prices. I think it is important not to allow just any old property company or investor buy property, or the wrong landlords could buy up all these properties and things will get worse for the population of real people. I think rents should be restricted by legislation. They are far too high and should have nothing to do with the value of house prices anyway. If too many landlords leave the so called market (joke!) then councils should start to take up the slack and provide more low priced rental housing. 

Building new housing seems to be necessary, but it is only part of the problem. We should see an end to Housing kept empty for investment purposes, and all rents should be lowered to become affordable. Of course councils probably need to reduce some of their rents too, and start setting a better example to the private sector.. 

I know none of this is easy because landlords will fight hard against the reduction in their profiteering and their housing benefit scams, but at least their main Tory Party benefactors are currently out of power. This is the time for the necessary revolution, according to Alfred, although he still doesn't have much hope for the Labour Party seeing it through sufficiently.