Emergency motion: speak out on council housing
We are unique amongst the main political parties in having a democratic internal structure. This weekend is our opportunity, denied to both Labour and Tory members, to decide the future of our party...
View ArticleOpinion: Council Housing – our role in its downfall
Housing is not an issue of Conservatism or Socialism. It is an issue of Humanity The Conservative Minister for Housing said that. In the 1950s. His name was Harold Macmillan, and he oversaw more than...
View ArticleOpinion: Are there no workhouses? Our skewed housing benefit debate
This recent debate about housing benefit has been explosive, with anger and froth expelled by both sides of the debate. And with Christmas coming, I can’t help feeling that there are many out there...
View ArticleAdrian Sanders writes… The cap that doesn’t fit
People outside of London who cannot afford to buy a home or meet their rent without help from the benefit system are missing out in the current debate on the capping of Housing Benefit. The housing...
View ArticleOpinion: Piecing together the housing policy jigsaw
The Coalition government is seemingly intent upon drowning us in a blizzard of consultation papers, green papers, white papers, and hasty legislation. No doubt there is also a bit of kite flying taking...
View ArticleOpinion: The housing policy jigsaw – identifying the pieces
Yesterday, I suggested that it would be valuable to piece together the housing policy jigsaw in order to reflect on the picture that emerges. Policy in this field speaks directly to our fundamental...
View ArticleOpinion: The housing policy jigsaw – a picture begins to emerge?
In yesterday’s post I set out key policy developments affecting housing. So what can we discern about the current government’s approach to housing? For a start there is a continuing emphasis upon...
View ArticleOpinion: The housing policy jigsaw – the changing picture
I started this discussion of current developments in policy towards housing by noting that it is an area in which the tensions in inherent in balancing “the fundamental values of freedom, equality and...
View ArticleBenefit caps and central London: how many children will be moving school?
Many Liberal Democrats I’ve spoken to have mixed feelings about the proposed benefit cap and some of the housing benefit changes. On the one hand, they have very little sympathy with the complaints of...
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Margaret Thatcher, the 1983 election and the ‘bedroom tax’
Like Caron, I spent more than a healthy amount of my Bank Holiday Monday watching BBC Parliament’s re-run of the 1983 general election. It’s not an election I remember (I was 6). But the symmetry of...
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