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10:08 AM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago 19
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Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old friend, the Ashton-under-Lyne foghorn Angela Rayner making headlines this week and turning uncharacteristically shy about her antics.
Angela is the deputy leader of the Labour Party and the shadow housing secretary. She is also a former council house tenant who bought her home under the right-to-buy scheme (not from a Labour-run council, natch) and sold it for a hefty profit.
But she doesn’t want other tenants to do the same because she wants to end the right-to-buy policy that gave millions of people a chance to own their own home and build their wealth.
Angela claims to be a champion of the working class and likes to tell her story of how she became a single mother at 16, left school with no qualifications, and worked as a care worker before entering politics.
She says we need more people like her in politics.
To an extent, I agree. There’s no doubt that we need MPs who have overcome adversity and achieved success through hard work and determination.
But what we don’t need are hypocrites who say one thing and do another. We also don’t need people who exploit the system for their own benefit and then deny others the same opportunity.
The British public doesn’t need people who preach about morality and fairness and then act in what appears to be an immoral and unfair way.
Let’s look at the facts. Angela bought her former council house in Stockport in 2007 with a 25% discount and sold it in 2015 for £127,500, making a £48,500 profit.
There is nothing wrong with that since she had every right to buy and sell her home as she pleased.
But the problem is that she opposes the right-to-buy policy that allowed her to do so.
She thinks it is immoral for councils to sell off their properties and she thinks it is wrong for tenants to buy their homes and sell them for a profit.
She has said it’s unfair for people to benefit from the country’s largest transfer of wealth.
I think she is clearly wrong. The right-to-buy policy, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, was a revolutionary reform that empowered millions of people to become homeowners.
It gave them a stake in society, a sense of pride and responsibility, and a source of security and inheritance.
It also generated billions of pounds in revenue for councils to invest in new and improved housing.
But our Angela doesn’t see it that way. She wants to scrap the right-to-buy policy and stop tenants from buying their homes.
She wants to keep them trapped in the rental sector, paying rent to the state or to private landlords, with no hope of ever owning their own property.
She wants to deny them the freedom and the financial security that she enjoyed herself.
Angela also needs to answer some serious questions about her own conduct. It has been reported that she gave two different addresses in official documents before becoming an MP.
She was registered to vote at her former council house but re-registered the births of her two youngest children at another address, where her husband was also listed.
Neighbours claim that she moved out of her council house in 2009 and rented it out to her brother. If true, this raises several issues:
Angela needs to come clean and provide clear and honest answers to these questions. She cannot hide behind excuses or blame others for misunderstanding the rules – and don’t believe anyone who says she has made a simple mistake. She hasn’t.
Angela has been quick enough to criticise other people for breaking the rules, such as Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson. She cannot expect to be treated differently.
To be honest, I don’t care whether Angela organises her affairs to save tax or has more than one home. That is her business.
But I do care when she criticises other people for doing the same. That is hypocrisy.
And I do care when she tries to stop other people from buying their council houses.
Angela needs to stop being a hypocrite and start being a leader.
She needs to admit that the right-to-buy policy is a good idea and support it. Or she needs to resign.
She also needs to lay off landlords in the PRS striving to home people.
And as Tory MP Jonathan Gullis says: “Angela Rayner has questions to answer. If she has nothing to hide, she should have nothing to fear.”
While silence is golden when it comes to our Angela, the next chapter that could feature the police AND HMRC taking an interest in what happened and whether relevant taxes weren’t paid is just too delicious to miss.
Until next time,
The Landlord Crusader
John MacAlevey
10:20 AM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Thatcher had the nowse to use ownership of homes as way of getting people out of bed to work to pay their mortgages. This brilliant & clever bit of simple psychology was a driver to higher home ownership & a move away from social housing. Funny how this loudmouth seems to be in the thrall of one the most Thatcherite policys.
Caley McKernan
11:03 AM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Homeless and housed. 3 years later can afford to buy -social housing not housing on the open market with a hefty subsidy by tax payers/council tax payers.
Cash buyers and no investigation into where the cash came from. Homeowner now realizes they are a cash cow for the council. They fund the new kitchens, doors, windows, roof repairs for the estate.
Sell the property for a hefty sum especially in London.
Every new social housing build can go that way. One built one out.
Seething Landlord
11:29 AM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Introduction of the right to buy was undoubtedly a brilliant piece of social engineering in its day and whilst good for those who are able to benefit from it the other side of the coin is that it has also dramatically reduced the availability of council housing. It continues to be a severe obstacle to building new council housing and is probably also responsible, at least to some extent, for the sense of deprivation and entitlement displayed by Generation Rent. Prior to its introduction a significant proportion of the population were content to spend their lives in secure rented accommodation provided by the Council but RTB changed all that. We now have a generation that is characterised by resentment because they missed out on what was only ever going to be a one-off opportunity for those lucky enough to be able to take advantage of it.
I was not aware that Angela Rayner had committed to abolishing the right to buy but if she has, that would be a positive step towards encouraging local authorities to start building and accommodating those who should never have become the "responsibility" of the PRS.
My fear is that a Labour government might move in the opposite direction by extending RTB to the PRS.
NewYorkie
11:57 AM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 01/03/2024 - 11:29
Extend RTB to the PRS... let the games begin!
Hedley
13:10 PM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
I was a fan of Margaret Thatcher and always will be. However, although I think it was a great idea to keep the conservatives elected in the 1980s, I have never considered the Right to Buy scheme fair
The extent of the discounts was far too high, councils didn't have control of the receipts and even if they had, couldn't afford (mainly because of the discounted sales off) to replace their stock of social housing.
It also meant that councils didn't build new stock anyway. Why would they if, in a few years time, they had to sell to the tenat at a discount.
There was one benefit (other than that to the Conservative party) and that was that owner occupiers tended to look after their homes, but the decimation of social housing has been too great.
If new social housing is to be built, or if new social tenancies are created then they shouldn't have the benefit of RTB.
JeggNegg
16:31 PM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Funny old world, with so many people with very short memories and possibly no consciences. If her property was rented to her brother, I wonder what rules she followed to evict him so that she could sell her property?
I think I read something that her husband, Mr Mark Rayner, when a Bachelor, also purchased his council house, which I understand is now the matrimonial home.
I suppose the longer this potential bending of the rules, drags on The harder, it might be to believe the facts.
Have Shelter, Crisis etc made any comments?
Beaver
17:45 PM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Hedley at 01/03/2024 - 13:10On the extent of the comment about the discounts having been far too high: I think that means *are* far too high.
In the area that I live some of my direct neighbours are council tax tenants and I happen to know that for a three bed house with a garden and off-road parking they pay £207 per week in rent (and I am obliged to pay more than they do in Council Tax). So that is about £850 PCM. But in the area I live the cost of renting a three bed house on the open market varies from £1,500-£2,000 PCM. Council houses sell for slightly less than other houses locally, even though the ones near me are well built.
So the tenants are obliged to pay about half the market rent for their council houses and when they are eventually entitled to buy their houses they are already living in a cheap house to start with and they are then entitled to get a 25% discount on top of that without having to go through all the effort, stresses and strains of searching for and buying your own home; and the stress of this is considerable, as most homeowners who have bought their own home know.
But you are not automatically entitled to get onto that particular gravy train. I come from a working family but I would not have been entitled to a council house. I paid for the deposit on my first house from after tax earnings and I paid the mortgage from after-tax earnings. When I bought my first BTL I paid for that from after tax earnings. When I sold the first BTL I owned I declared the CGT and paid the tax due.
I do hope that Angela Rayner understands how enormously privileged that she is to have been given that massive gift by the taxpayer (i.e. small portfolio BTL landlords like me who are presently being penalised by the tax system and have not been given big handouts by the state).
The privileged do not just live in Monaco, Switzerland and the Bahamas.
Cider Drinker
19:53 PM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
RTB didn’t cause the problem. Every house bought by a council tenant was one less tenant for the council to accommodate.
The problem is that the U.K. population has ballooned, people live in smaller households and house building hasn’t increased sufficiently.
I know unemployed couples with children that have a house each. It’s easy when the State is paying for them.
NewYorkie
22:29 PM, 1st March 2024, About 2 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 01/03/2024 - 19:53
An increase of 10 million in a little over 10 years. We haven't been having that many kids!
Every home bought under RTB was one less for the council to maintain, and one more for the council to rip off in service charges if it was a flat.
Stella
13:09 PM, 2nd March 2024, About 2 months ago
Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 01/03/2024 - 22:29
That is very true.
Council service charges can be very high because the councils are hopeless at maintaining their properties.
On a 2 bed ex - council flat in a block of 32 flats I was charged almost £20,000 about 15 years ago because they changed the front door the kitchen window and resurfaced the communal area.
Having an ex - council house just like Ms Rayner is a much better idea especially if it comes with a discount which at the present time I believe is around 35% it was probably more when Ms Rayner took advantage of her discount.