Our Housing Minister must be congratulated. Today’s Observer carries a front page article under the heading Minister pledges to end the housing price rollercoaster. Mr Shapps acknowledges that the rapid increases in house prices we have witnessed over the last decade have caused considerable pain for those seeking […]
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 31/12/10] 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 community” are absolutely central. Housing policy needs to […]
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 30/12/10] 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 choice. This is particularly clear when discussing how to […]
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 29/12/10] 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 values -freedom, equality and community – and how […]
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 28/12/10] 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 place for good measure. One problem with all […]
Earlier today my good friend Dave over at Nearly Legal, in a post about the Localism bill, put his finger on something that had been troubling me. Something strange and unusual is definitely afoot. It is only a couple of weeks since the social housing reform consultation paper […]
If you have a blog then you’ve probably got access to a host of usage statistics for your site, information on links to and from your blog, and the search terms that people used to lead them to your words of wisdom. I’ve just noticed that someone found […]
We’ve now had a few days to come to terms with the content of Local Decisions: a fairer future for social housing, the Coalition government’s consultation paper (CP) on social housing reform. The response has varied from the broadly positive to the outright condemnatory. In prefacing his comments […]
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 11/11/10] It was entirely predictable. The opening moves in a game that could see another hard-won component of the welfare state undermined have now been played. It may have been predictable, but it is no less distasteful for all that.
[Originally posted on Liberal Democrat Voice, 03/11/10] At the heart of politics lie battles over meaning. In an uncertain world there is plenty of scope to contest the definition of problems and the perceived effectiveness of solutions. Under Labour we came to think of agenda management as “spin”, […]
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