..but as I keep saying, those people claiming to be in need are already drawing benefit.

If those families are moved to a council house they effectively no longer do, because it goes toward the rent paid straight back to the council.

This does not make it free BUT it makes it no more expensive than the current system, when you think about it. And because council houses are not limited to those on benefits, as I also keep saying, it will surely prove less expensive due to the money coming in from the non-subsidised rent pushing the balance sheet the other way.

Relieve the pressure on housing with a cheaper system than the current one? No! Lunacy!

On this planet. The ‘Welfare State’ in the meaning it has taken on in modern usage, is a system of subsidy.

Council Houses are not subsidised, they are not given free, they are rented. They were generally cheaper than private rentals because the aim was to cover building and maintenence costs, not to provide a private income from any margin – although they did provide revenue for most councils by the 1970’s.

They were and are sustainable, when they are generally available to the population and not an ’emergency stock’ kept back for desperate cases which they became after the sell off.

But they are not given as a benefit or a subsidy. Housing benefit IS, council houses are not. So they are not part of the ‘Welfare State’, no matter how ‘socialist’ or ‘collectivist’ the principle behind them. (Socialism is, as I believe I have said, not about ‘free money’ anyway)! Not semantics, this is a distinction crucial to understanding the argument.

I was referring to council housing as ‘fit for purpose’, as distinct from.state ownership of industry! It is also, as I have banged on about already, distinct from the ‘welfare state’.

No, we don’t specifically need more council homes because they are council homes – we just need more homes, and as the private sector left to its own devices has fallen short (instead making ‘lazier’ profit ftom the demand side of the curve) the idea is for the public sector to step in. Just like post WWII – it wasn’t ‘we need more council properties’ or ‘we need more houses for poor folk’, it was just ‘we need more homes’. And it is the same now.

Increasingly people need help with rents, but that’s because rents are high compared to wages, which in turn is because demand outweighs supply.

Buy-to-let was attractive to the private landlord until taxation was changed to make it less so. This does not apply to revenues from council-provided houses.

And I think my other point was lost back there. At the moment the minority of private rents that are paid with public money take money from the public purse. In a council house it gets put back there. Yes the ‘state’ has to own houses for any of this to happen. It did once, and it all worked out more or less ok.

You’re a closet socialist, JG? You must be a long way in.. can you see Narnia from there?

Yeah, s’about right I suppose.

It’s just housing, which we need more of. The same attendent questions of infrastructure provision apply whoever does it – in fact, they actually still apply if no-one does.. People need those things whether they live in new housing schemes or wherever they were before – the only real way to avoid the need is to get rid of the people who need education, hospitals..

How do private landlords manage upkeep? Are you saying being a landlord is an unsustainable activity?

But the point is, it’s just a council housing scheme. Not fantasy unless you deny the last century happened.

It’s Council Housing.

JG, that was not the point I was making. That is you stomping into a conversation with a ‘everyone hates Labour’ statement – which is a facet of what I am getting at.

What do you think of the actual policy?