Its all about delivery - A response to a Speech by Grant Shapps MP

I have just read the draft speech given by (The Rt Hon) Grant Shapps MP, Minister of State, Minister for Housing and Local Government.

The reason for the brackets above is that I just can’t bring myself to call any of these people honourable and reading his speech, it is no wonder. 

He does have some good ideas and he is driving these ideas through but just read the speech and see and judge for yourself. It is his opening remarks that make him as honourable as a Middle Eastern dictator and shows you that it is a game of ping pong with our lives between the political parties that makes them all dishonourable; this is what he says.

“Are you a veteran if you've done the same job for five years?
Normally the answer would be no - unless of course you cover the Government's housing portfolio like I do.
During this time I've seen a total of eight - yes eight - opposing Housing Ministers come and go.
But does this matter?
Well yes if you care about the state of housing in this country.
An endless reshuffling of the ministerial pack meant an endless reshuffling of ideas and initiatives.
But this conveyer belt of policies didn't deliver - and we all watched in horror as the housing sector entered its darkest hours since the 1920s.”

So, it was Labours inadequacies in power that caused the housing problem that we find ourselves in today, according to those few sentences.

They do say that it is always the ‘winners’ that write ‘history’ and once again here we have politicians who won the last election re-writing our recent social history.

Let’s be clear about this, Labour did nothing to bring any amelioration to the housing situation we face in the UK today, BUT, they did not create the problem in the first place.  It was the Conservatives and Maggie Thatcher, that brought social housing to it’s knees.

The Conservative policy of ‘right to buy’ without allowing or enforcing a replacement policy was short sighted and I would say almost criminal in its ineptitude, and not once will any Conservative admit to this simple glaring fact, will you Mr Shapps?

He goes on to say that he wants people to be able to buy their first home and that restrictions on rights to buy are to be lifted......

I really don’t know what planet these politicians have been dropped off from, and it is worldwide epidemic.

Republican White House frontrunner Mitt Romney this week commented, "I'm not concerned about the very poor.” 

And this is one of the problems with politicians.  They are in politics for the power trip and the money they can make from all of their little associate directorships and speaking engagements, we are beneath them, nothing more than a contemptible inconvenience that they have to contend with as they claw their way to the top.

Mr Shapps goes on to state that:

“And because we want to help everyone achieve their aspirations, to feel the pride of ownership - we're scrapping the miserly restrictions on the level of discounts under Right to Buy.
Up to 100,000 tenants will have the opportunity to buy their own home.
It's great news for every hardworking family who have done well for themselves and want to get on.”

But, he does also state;

 “So this will be a one-out, one-in policy. In other words a new home built for every home sold.”  

But, I will only believe that if I see it happening. The other problem I have with this is, 'that a new home built for every one sold',  is that we have a desperate housing shortage in this country because of the neglect of ALL political parties since the 'Right to Buy' scheme was introduced by the Conservatives and instead of building affordable homes that people without jobs or who are in low paid work can't afford , and who are in all probability, living in overcrowded run down social housing, they should be building more social housing homes and not concentrating on a one for one policy that will do nothing to ameliorate the current problems.


But I fear that they are still making a mistake with this and their ‘affordable houses’ policy.  Houses or homes are only affordable if people can pay for them.  To pay for them they have to have jobs (and to try and keep them). But again I have a problem with this. 

Unemployment is rising. Manufacturing jobs across the world are being ‘destroyed’ by technology.  Where once you needed an army of workers to manufacture a car you now need a handful. Where once you needed factories with tens of hundreds of shift workers to produce clothing and textiles, all you need now is a poor third world country with cheap child labour and their government who receive millions of pounds in British Taxpayers aid, or as the forked tongue politicians now like to call it, Overseas Development, to maintain their vast armies and their nuclear weapons.

Where are these jobs coming from that people in this country can have to earn a wage to pay for affordable housing? Social housing is what is needed and it is needed now without all the fancy bells and ribbons that Mr Shapps is offering in his speech. 

And I would suggest that the UK's Housing Sector entered it's darkest hour under Conservative policies and was just left to fester by a labour government who turned out to be nothing more than capitalists hiding under a veneer of socialism......