We need a party for common sense radical change.

[Paul Dunham]

I don’t think any of the parties have what it takes to rule this country with fairness. All parties don’t seem to be able to identify the problems which cause us the most trouble. Let alone do anything about it.
There is no need to cut services and taxes, there’s plenty of money and there always has been. If you take a look at where most of our money goes, it’s not in taxes. Most of our money goes to the cost of renting or buying the homes we live in.
Do you remember the days when anyone who came into money, could place the money in a bank account and live off the interest?
This is where Gordon Brown did too good a job. He created low interest rates where the wealthy in this country could no longer sit back with their feet up and let the interest roll in.
Instead they turned to the housing market to derive an income and they found the goose which laid the golden egg. Left unregulated these people(aided by banks, building societies, estate agents & the legal profession) who were already wealthy, having their own homes, cars, holiday’s, living lavish lifestyles created an auction which took the price of housing far and above what normal working people can afford. Landlords demand the maximum our wages can take. If suddenly the government gave all of us a hundred pound a week pay rise, it would make no difference, the landlords would take it.
If I rent a house, it is not for me to cover the entire mortgage for the landlord. It’s for me to pay a reasonable rent. Many landlords appear to want to buy a house and not contribute to it. They expect the tenant to buy it for them. Rent and house prices are the number one driving force for inflation and wages and where is most of our wages going? Straight into the pockets of the already rich and wealthy.
Imagine if rents and mortgages were slashed in half. How much pressure will it take off the average household? How much pressure would it take off wage demands? Would it make peoples life easier? Who will it hurt? The wealthy will have to be content with being less wealthy.
The banks, building societies, insurance companies and solicitors will have to contend themselves with being a little less wealthy too. It’s much better than the hell which the majority of the public has had to contend with. GIVE US A BREAK FROM THE GREEDY!!

[Balthazar]

Couldn't agree more. The British game of speculating with one of the basics of life - a roof over your head - is barbaric. I've had one or two good landlords but most were scum. The amount of fair-priced social housing is kept deliberately low so it doesn't interfere with the speculation. 'Property, Property, Property' type programmes on the TV are vile. So you're spot on. The question then becomes: how to deal with the speculating scum? Very hard. You need a major house-price crisis so the buy-to-let landlords can't pay their mortgages. The property can then be taken over by the state and rented out on good secure tenancies - none of this 6 month AST nonsense - at reasonable rents. I was hoping last year's financial crisis would cause such a slump - it almost did. Better luck next time.

[Jim Franklin]

I have sympathy for this angle. I have often thought the housing market has too undue influence on the performance of the national economy for too many years. I am in a really awkward position at the moment for reasons I won't bore you with, some third party twonks a large part a muppet letting agent who tells lies, and some my own fault.

Because I have a job I cannot get any help at the moment, yet I need to find a home in Swindon within days and do not have the money at this stage for a deposit due to using up savings paying for this place for months whilst my now ex-employer (the NHS) stitched me up.

So helping out the housing market is so overlooked by councils and the Government it is a joke and needs to be resolved..

[Balthazar]

Good luck Jim. Moving house is notoriously stressful and the absurd state of the UK housing market doesn't help.

[gypster]

Very interesting comment but this simply wont happen. Thatcher turned the housing tide with her ''right to buy'' in the eighties. Now the economy is reliant on homeowners spending the largely fictitious equity in their properties. What we need is a large increase in social housing, strict rent controls and the abolition of ''right to buy''. However,this needs to be coupled to the creation of real ''added value'' manfacturing jobs instead of the minimum wage service industry this country has become.

[Midas]

I don’t think any of the parties have what it takes to rule this country with fairness. All parties don’t seem to be able to identify the problems which cause us the most trouble. Let alone do anything about it.
There is no need to cut services and taxes, there’s plenty of money and there always has been. If you take a look at where most of our money goes, it’s not in taxes. Most of our money goes to the cost of renting or buying the homes we live in.
Do you remember the days when anyone who came into money, could place the money in a bank account and live off the interest?
This is where Gordon Brown did too good a job. He created low interest rates where the wealthy in this country could no longer sit back with their feet up and let the interest roll in.
Instead they turned to the housing market to derive an income and they found the goose which laid the golden egg. Left unregulated these people(aided by banks, building societies, estate agents & the legal profession) who were already wealthy, having their own homes, cars, holiday’s, living lavish lifestyles created an auction which took the price of housing far and above what normal working people can afford. Landlords demand the maximum our wages can take. If suddenly the government gave all of us a hundred pound a week pay rise, it would make no difference, the landlords would take it.
If I rent a house, it is not for me to cover the entire mortgage for the landlord. It’s for me to pay a reasonable rent. Many landlords appear to want to buy a house and not contribute to it. They expect the tenant to buy it for them. Rent and house prices are the number one driving force for inflation and wages and where is most of our wages going? Straight into the pockets of the already rich and wealthy.
Imagine if rents and mortgages were slashed in half. How much pressure will it take off the average household? How much pressure would it take off wage demands? Would it make peoples life easier? Who will it hurt? The wealthy will have to be content with being less wealthy.
The banks, building societies, insurance companies and solicitors will have to contend themselves with being a little less wealthy too. It’s much better than the hell which the majority of the public has had to contend with. GIVE US A BREAK FROM THE GREEDY!!

Hi Paul, and welcome to the Politics Forum!

To start with you might like to read the extended "Welcome" message in the Rules and Guidelines section of the forum, which also includes a full version of the Forum Rules.

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Enjoy the debates

As far as your post is concerned, whilst I do agree that the housing market here in the UK has reached some ridiculous levels, in part because of the relaxing of borrowing requirements, the concept of reducing housing costs just doesn't hold water I'm afraid. To start with, once someone has purchased their own house, they're not going to want it to drop in value, and secondly, unless there's a profit to be made, no-one would rent out property to tenants. The whole idea of a property owner renting out and taking a loss on their rental income is a total non-starter; the rental market would dry up in a matter of weeks were that to happen, and non-house owners would be in an even worse position than they are now.

Believe me, unless you've owned property for many years or have been able to buy at well below the current open market prices, there aren't many rental properties which provide more than single figure percentage incomes for their owners. As someone who has a few of these, I know the economics of it only too well; by the time that agent's fees, insurances, a sum for repairs and replacements and tax have all been deducted from the rent, there's not a huge amount to be made, and that's without having to have any hefty mortgage interest.

You might think that landlords are greedy, but a simple calculation of the costs involved will show that very few actually are. For example, last year I bought a number of 2 bedroom apartments in both Birmingham and Manchester. These were purpose built, buy-to-let apartments originally completed just before the recession, and their original sale prices averaged at £150k. I picked them up at a repossession auction an average of £85k, and by the time I'd made a few running repairs, had them redecorated and bought furniture you can say an average of £90k each. If I were to put that into a high interest bank account I could earn perhaps £4,500 a year. The properties rent out for £525 a month each, but by the time agent's fees have been paid and I've made an allowance for likely depreciation of fixtures and fittings etc, I get about £5,000 a year before tax, just £500 more than I could by leaving my money in the bank. I might make a profit, again taxable, on their eventual resale, but to be honest even at that rental income and having bought the properties at a 55% reduction on original cost price, it's still only a marginally profitable business.

[Paul Dunham]

Hello Midas,

Thank you very much for your reply. It was very welcome.
Obviously we are in complete diagreement on this issue and I do not accept the argument you put forward over the dfficulties landlords have to face. I'm one of the many people without a home living in a Salvation Army Hostel having to watch the wealthy of this country drive up wages, inflation, house prices with the maximum rent which can be sqeezed from each and every one of us to such a degree manufacturing in this country no longer financially viable and many very talented workmen have been thrown on to the scrap heap.
I have very little sympathy for landlords difficulties managing their properties and in any event a large number of landlords don't even make the effort to do that. They pay and estate agent to do it for them. Oooooh I wish my problems were so simple.

If I had my own way I would create a law only allowing a person to own their own house and make landlords dump their properties back on the open market allowing house prices to drop to their true value which ordinary working people can afford.
I feel housing in too important and we should never of allowed the feeding frenzy by the wealthy in the first place.
The wealthy having been making alot of hay whilst the sun been shinning the last few decades. It's about time the gravy train stopped. Properties should bee strictly regulated and taken away from this free for all market.

[Balthazar]

I have very little sympathy for landlords difficulties managing their properties

Sorry Midas, you're a lovely fella but that's a pretty disgusting story you told - trying to make a profit from the housing shortage. Then moaning that your profit wasn't big enough!

[Citizen Smith]

I hear that Paul! .... But Midas will never agree anything against the free market. he's a staunch, starchy conservative.
I'm sure a lot of others agree though, that a fairer system would be a better system. Vulnerable people need affordable housing- there's far too much property for the rich to choose between, changing whenever they are bored.

[Midas]

Here we go again with the usual whinging and whining from the extreme left; how hard done by they are and how society owes them a living and how they should be entitled to leech off those who’ve got up off their backsides and done something about making a success of their lives! Sorry to include you in this Paul, not knowing your background and the circumstances which have put you where you are, however from the sentiments you express in your post, you would appear to fit the bill… Please correct me if I’m wrong. I quite acknowledge there are some people in society who are genuinely in need of help through no fault of their own, and I’d never deny them that as long as they try their damnedest to get out of their situation as soon as they possibly can.

I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for the more moderate socialists in this forum with whom you can hold an intelligent debate, and who can view life for what it actually is rather than looking at it through red tinted glasses and can rationalise an argument in favour of their point of view for more humanity in society without having to resort to trotting out the same sad clichéd phrases without facts to back them up.

Get over it and used to it; human nature is acquisitive and selfish. Altruism only works when there’s something in it either for us directly or for our immediate genetic family. It’s one thing to theorise how things might be in your ideal and never to be realised world, but in reality, those who have the gumption to, will always strive to improve themselves and to make more from life than their peers. Why the hell should you expect those of us who have worked hard and made something of ourselves and of our lives, to listen to your constant complaints about how hard done by you are and how we should support you, when you yourselves have done little to nothing towards contributing to that same society you expect to support you?

My closest friend started out on his business career by coming out of prison with no home to go to, pushing a shopping trolley salvaged from a canal round the streets gathering scrap metal. He’s now the owner and CEO of a family run recycling group worth well into 9 figures. A friend of my daughter got made redundant at the start of the recession and rather than go on benefits she swallowed her pride and got down on her hands and knees and started cleaning houses and pubs; 3 years later she employs well over 50 people to do that for her, drives round in a Mercedes SL and if things go the way they have done, will have her first self-made million in the bank within a couple of years. I myself started off with just £7,500 and by sheer hard work have turned it into a substantial 8 figure sum. We could all have easily sat back and complained about the unfairness of life and how we were owed a living, but we, and thousands of others with self respect and pride didn’t, we got up and did something about it, providing employment for many hundreds of others as well as paying well over the odds in tax to support an ever growing army of n’er do wells who do just what you lot do; whine and whinge and act like Oliver, holding out their bowl for more!

Certainly this world is imperfect and there a lot of injustices out there, many of them started and perpetuated by government in order to maintain power and control, many more of them perpetuated by the constant campaigning of socialists insisting on ‘fairness’ in their attempts to get something for nothing from life. But rather than simply become one of the moaning Minnie’s of life, get up and do something for yourselves for once; you’ll find it a whole lot more rewarding than yapping like little dogs waiting to be fed scraps from the tables of the successful!

[Citizen Smith]

"Human nature is selfish"
WRONG!
Human nature is collectivism, and helping people. Capitalism attempts to force people to be selfish, vicious and competitive. And its done a good job of it on some. Namely tories.

[Balthazar]

Here we go again with the usual whinging and whining from the extreme left; how hard done by they are and how society owes them a living and how they should be entitled to leech off those who’ve got up off their backsides and done something about making a success of their lives! Sorry to include you in this Paul, not knowing your background and the circumstances which have put you where you are, however from the sentiments you express in your post, you would appear to fit the bill… Please correct me if I’m wrong. I quite acknowledge there are some people in society who are genuinely in need of help through no fault of their own, and I’d never deny them that as long as they try their damnedest to get out of their situation as soon as they possibly can.

I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for the more moderate socialists in this forum with whom you can hold an intelligent debate, and who can view life for what it actually is rather than looking at it through red tinted glasses and can rationalise an argument in favour of their point of view for more humanity in society without having to resort to trotting out the same sad clichéd phrases without facts to back them up.

Get over it and used to it; human nature is acquisitive and selfish. Altruism only works when there’s something in it either for us directly or for our immediate genetic family. It’s one thing to theorise how things might be in your ideal and never to be realised world, but in reality, those who have the gumption to, will always strive to improve themselves and to make more from life than their peers. Why the hell should you expect those of us who have worked hard and made something of ourselves and of our lives, to listen to your constant complaints about how hard done by you are and how we should support you, when you yourselves have done little to nothing towards contributing to that same society you expect to support you?

My closest friend started out on his business career by coming out of prison with no home to go to, pushing a shopping trolley salvaged from a canal round the streets gathering scrap metal. He’s now the owner and CEO of a family run recycling group worth well into 9 figures. A friend of my daughter got made redundant at the start of the recession and rather than go on benefits she swallowed her pride and got down on her hands and knees and started cleaning houses and pubs; 3 years later she employs well over 50 people to do that for her, drives round in a Mercedes SL and if things go the way they have done, will have her first self-made million in the bank within a couple of years. I myself started off with just £7,500 and by sheer hard work have turned it into a substantial 8 figure sum. We could all have easily sat back and complained about the unfairness of life and how we were owed a living, but we, and thousands of others with self respect and pride didn’t, we got up and did something about it, providing employment for many hundreds of others as well as paying well over the odds in tax to support an ever growing army of n’er do wells who do just what you lot do; whine and whinge and act like Oliver, holding out their bowl for more!

Certainly this world is imperfect and there a lot of injustices out there, many of them started and perpetuated by government in order to maintain power and control, many more of them perpetuated by the constant campaigning of socialists insisting on ‘fairness’ in their attempts to get something for nothing from life. But rather than simply become one of the moaning Minnie’s of life, get up and do something for yourselves for once; you’ll find it a whole lot more rewarding than yapping like little dogs waiting to be fed scraps from the tables of the successful!

Good Lord! It's not "extreme left" to criticise someone, respectfully, for:

(a) seeking to profit-monger from the housing shortage
(b) moaning his profit wasn't big enough

I'd also criticise you, respectfully, for trying to stuff your pockets at a repossession sale:

I bought a number of 2 bedroom apartments... I picked them up at a repossession auction...

Midas, that's not a nice thing to do: profiting from the pain of people who've lost their homes. It's got nothing to do with being "left wing" or "right wing." It's called "a lack of common decency."

You've given a good example of capitalism turning a decent person - you - into someone who behaves shamefully, then deploys a Tory Boy rant to try and justify it. You should be ashamed of yourself. Get a grip sir!

[ryoden]

Would reducing rents and mortgages take pressure off family and wage demands?

I dont honestly know as I am not adept with ecomomics, I would imagine that it would improve things for people who were renting (obviously since they are paying less), mortgage rates are already quite low; although I am not adverse to banks taking a little less profit. I think that banks should have a lot more regulation or at least be split into business banks that take risks and banks that lend to normal people that don't (and its clear to all which is which so you cant complain if you take risk for higher profit and then the bank goes to the wall). However interfering in private rent would probably have other knockon effects such as those who were relying on the rent to pay the mortgage might lose the house, which may essentially put the person who was renting it on the street, if someone else bought it and wanted to live there? There are always unforseen effects when tinkering with economics which is why I don't pretend to understand the market forces in any but the vaguest sense.

I personally own three houses (1 we live in and 2 we rent out) which probably makes me a capitalist running dog I assume? Anyway we bought our first additional house at an auction, we didnt have much cash (we had saved up about 12k from our jobs by not going on holiday and not having a car for years), at the end of the auction the house that we were interested in hadnt sold so we picked it up cheap, the reason nobody wanted it was that it came with 2 sitting tenants paying a peppercorn rent (very, very low) but that didn't bother us since our plan was long term in that we wanted a house each to use for pension purposes in the future (since we realised that if we survived into retirement we were unlikely to have a comfortable retirement on todays pension system).

We were lucky in the fact that the two elderly ladies went into care homes within 5 years (not lucky for them of course but it comes to us all and thats life, when we die some charity will benefit from our houses and nobody will be crying over the fact), the value of the house shot up of course and the released equity enabled us to buy my wife's parents house (at market value but saved fees). We dont really live a high lifestyle, couple of weeks away every year, run a supermini, nothing special so I dont consider myself a slum landlord who is making masses of cash off the backs of other hard working individuals. We keep our properties in good condition because a: we cant rent them out otherwise and b: they are part of our pension plan. I dont know how a forced lowering of rents would work anyway, since rents are different all over the country depending on house size and location? Would the government say £X is the most anyone can charge anywhere, or would it just be dependant on size, or size and location?

Regardless you stated lowering the rent by 50%, In my case I would continue renting to professional tenants, (we have a low mortgage on only one property and none on the other so 50% rent wouldnt force me to sell) since my wife and I are both part time it would reduce our living standard but it wouldnt force us to sell (although it would screw our retirement plans since house prices would fall I expect) and I would find it harder to maintain the properties if they required major works. It would hurt us and I don't consider myself wealthy so either your definition of wealthy is someone who earns around £18k a year after tax (that includes the rent). I would also feel aggrieved that the government had punished me for working hard.

For what it's worth I do agree with you that the housing prices are way overpriced, I would find it harder to do now what I did 18 years ago. I also agree that it would be nice to live in a world where everyone was nice to each other and worked for the common good and nobody was greedy or sought to have more of something than someone else but i fear that without a massive technological advance (such as the fictional star trek universe) such a world is virtually impossible to achieve because regardless of what some say human nature is basically both tribal and aggressive, the fact that most of us have a reasonable standard of living means we can be charitable to other people (benefits etc), but take that away and put everyone on limited resources where they have barely enough to eat and they will quite happily murder strangers to survive rather than risk trying to pool resources with people they dont know (not all people but I suspect that the majority would act in this manner eventually).

Most radical ideas like this don't really work, it's like me saying that stopping immigration would make everything better, it might do in some ways but in others it would be bad. They always sound good but there are unforseen effects that can cause serious problems in the economy. I didnt vote in the poll since I would have agreed that without really thinking it through, yes it would take pressure off but I have no idea what other bad effects it might have, in the long term it could make things worse.

[Kiwi 1691]

If there is a shortage of homes, I'd have thought the govt should be providing incentives for developers to build more homes, not paying off people huge loans.

[Midas]

Good Lord! It's not "extreme left" to criticise someone, respectfully, for:

(a) seeking to profit-monger from the housing shortage
(b) moaning his profit wasn't big enough

It was the complaining whole tone of the three posts which had been made after my own which I was commenting on, all from left-wingers (or should that be left-whingers). I completely fail to see why buying property to let out at a time when there is a shortage of rented property is “profit-mongering” – you’d rather I didn’t do it, or do it at a loss, would you? I’d have thought the very fact that despite pointing out I can make significantly more money by investing elsewhere but haven’t should tell you something, but obviously not; mind you, those blinded by ideology often can’t see beyond the ends of their noses.

I'd also criticise you, respectfully, for trying to stuff your pockets at a repossession sale:

And:

Seriously Midas, that's not a nice thing to do: profiting from the pain of people who've lost their homes. It's got nothing to do with being "left wing" or "right wing." It's called "a lack common decency."

What's "not nice" about it; you’d rather someone other than me else bought them, is that it, or perhaps you’d rather the original owners were left with them, having to pay through the nose to try to keep them, getting closer and closer to bankruptcy whilst they were standing empty? I hardly think buying at auction is “stuffing your pockets”; if you do, you must have a pretty strange view of life!

You've given a good example of capitalism turning a decent person - you - into someone who behaves shamefully, then deploys a Tory Boy rant to try and justify it. You should be ashamed of yourself. Get a grip sir!

No, what I’ve done is to give a good example of going out and making the most of an opportunity which presents itself; buying at a good discount to be able to fix an affordable rent for tenants. The property market is just like any other; face up to the realities of life, or you’ll give yourself even more of an opportunity to moan about how hard done by you are and how others are getting ahead all round you!

"Human nature is selfish"
WRONG!
Human nature is collectivism, and helping people. Capitalism attempts to force people to be selfish, vicious and competitive. And its done a good job of it on some. Namely tories.

Go on; jump on the bandwagon with more meaningless and irrelevant clichés which fly in the face of everything we know about human nature, rather than coming up with some original observations!

[Paul Dunham]

Hello Midas,
I’m sorry if I’m a bit slow in replying. I have to rely on hour each day in the library and occasional use at the hostel in which I am staying. I’d kill for a laptop. In any case I spend most of my time doing job searches.
I’ve had very little time to fill in the profile, so if you want to know who I am you can check me out on Facebook. I’m the guy with the bird wearing the hat.
Yes, I guess I must be one of those time wasting spongers who have done nothing with their lives other than leech off the wealthy and poor tax payers of this country. I don’t consider myself either left or right wing of anything. I’m more concerned with what’s right and wrong and what is causing the most damage to this country. I imagine these terms are just a derogatory form of insult against anyone who disagrees with your point of view.

Again the reply you have given is pretty insulting to the majority of hard working people in this country. The arguments you put forward to justify the behaviour of the wealthy do not seem too dissimilar to the justification in which dictators such a Robert Mugabe, Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini use to describe the opposition who were usually victimise or murdered. Emotive words, such as whinging, whining, extreme left, get off their backsides has always been the weapons the wealthy have used to attack their critics and justify their actions. I whole heartedly agree with you that there is genetically inherited greed where the greedy breed with other greedy people to produce even more greedy people and make the rest of us suffer. We live in a country of over 60 million people and there will always be people who do not possess the academic ability to succeed in business or have entrepreneurial tendencies. Most people quite simply want to go to work and then return home to their families and have enough to survive. You describe the successes of your friends, but a large number of businesses fail too. Has the successful entrepreneur worked any harder than the ones which fail? There are many successful people who don’t work as hard are many manual labourers. Is it that a good standard of living should only be available to those with the entrepreneurial instinct? A country is only as good as it treats its poorer citizens.
Your reply seems to deny any wrong doing or greediness on behave of the wealthy. So, I guess it must be my imagination landlords every year increase rents to levels often over and above the rate of inflation. My life’s lesson in economics tells me higher house prices and rents demanded by landlords is the number one driving force for inflation, it equals more pressure on wages, more strikes, higher manufacturing costs, higher prices of EVERYTHING. It pushes the cost of living up for every single person here in the UK.

[Midas]

Hello Midas,
I’m sorry if I’m a bit slow in replying. I have to rely on hour each day in the library and occasional use at the hostel in which I am staying. I’d kill for a laptop. In any case I spend most of my time doing job searches.
I’ve had very little time to fill in the profile, so if you want to know who I am you can check me out on Facebook. I’m the guy with the bird wearing the hat.
Yes, I guess I must be one of those time wasting spongers who have done nothing with their lives other than leech off the wealthy and poor tax payers of this country. I don’t consider myself either left or right wing of anything. I’m more concerned with what’s right and wrong and what is causing the most damage to this country. I imagine these terms are just a derogatory form of insult against anyone who disagrees with your point of view.

Speed of reply isn’t an issue Paul, especially given the circumstances. What I would like to say first and foremost though is that I don’t want this to become in any way personal, not simply because I don’t know you or the details of your situation, but mainly because the introduction of personalities introduces emotions which can easily cloud wider issues, leading to antagonism.

I quite agree with you that there’s a huge amount wrong with this country, legislation introduced by governments of all political persuasions, and those, in combination with excessive welfare and benefit schemes have created an underclass of people who simply expect others to look after them. OK, I know that’s very simplistic and there’s a huge amount more to it than that. I’m sorry if you feel I’m lumping you in with that underclass, I’m not; as I said, I don’t know you or your situation. As I’ve said many times in this forum, there are many people in society who, at various times in their lives deserve a helping hand when they find themselves in situations not of their own making. But I also believe that helping hand often goes on far too long and is far too generous, taking away not only self-respect but also ambition and determination from many people who are content, if that’s the right word, to simply earn enough to live on.

Again the reply you have given is pretty insulting to the majority of hard working people in this country. The arguments you put forward to justify the behaviour of the wealthy do not seem too dissimilar to the justification in which dictators such a Robert Mugabe, Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini use to describe the opposition who were usually victimise or murdered. Emotive words, such as whinging, whining, extreme left, get off their backsides has always been the weapons the wealthy have used to attack their critics and justify their actions. I whole heartedly agree with you that there is genetically inherited greed where the greedy breed with other greedy people to produce even more greedy people and make the rest of us suffer. We live in a country of over 60 million people and there will always be people who do not possess the academic ability to succeed in business or have entrepreneurial tendencies. Most people quite simply want to go to work and then return home to their families and have enough to survive. You describe the successes of your friends, but a large number of businesses fail too. Has the successful entrepreneur worked any harder than the ones which fail? There are many successful people who don’t work as hard are many manual labourers. Is it that a good standard of living should only be available to those with the entrepreneurial instinct? A country is only as good as it treats its poorer citizens.

With the exception of those unfortunate enough to be born with physical or mental disabilities, every single person in this country can take advantage of exactly the same basic educational facilities and the plethora of both privately funded and government funded schemes to further their own personal and business careers. Yes, there are a small minority who have an extra helping hand, but they are a small minority. Now I quite agree with you that not everyone has the intelligence or the ability, let alone the drive or ambition, to become a multi-millionaire; perhaps just as well as those people who are content to simply do a day’s work for a day’s pay are just as vital to the country’s economy as the entrepreneurs who drive it. However given that the opportunity to do much more with your life than most people take advantage of, is there for everyone, I don’t feel that I have any reason to be castigated for pointing out the true facts. Many people, in particular those on the political left, do indeed whinge and whine about “not being given a fair chance” and “how hard done by they are” when that “chance” is there for them to take for themselves – as people I know have done – yet they simply ignore it. If you’re not one of those and you’re current situation is temporary and not of your own making, I’m sorry and I hope it soon changes; if not and you’re one of those who complain bitterly but does little to nothing to help yourself, always looking for excuses and other people to blame for what’s basically your own inaction, I’m sorry, but I have little sympathy. You can lay much of the blame for that on socialism and its drive to force people to the lowest common denominator by knocking out our competitive spirit and creating the benefits and something for nothing culture.

Your reply seems to deny any wrong doing or greediness on behave of the wealthy. So, I guess it must be my imagination landlords every year increase rents to levels often over and above the rate of inflation. My life’s lesson in economics tells me higher house prices and rents demanded by landlords is the number one driving force for inflation, it equals more pressure on wages, more strikes, higher manufacturing costs, higher prices of EVERYTHING. It pushes the cost of living up for every single person here in the UK.

No, I certainly don’t deny that there are the greedy in society, at all levels of society, nor do I deny that there are a few of the wealthy who are excessively so, but they do represent a very small, although disproportionately talked about, minority. The vast majority of the wealthy are there because of hard work and determination. Look at the large numbers of perfectly ordinary working or middle class people who have ended up in the Forbes or Times ‘Richest’ lists.

I think you’re being a bit simplistic in your comments about house prices and rents though. There are many factors which determine what levels of rent should be applied to what properties, and what determines how much they have to rise to maintain a steady income for the landlord – surely you can’t deny them that! You just cannot take one item, such as housing costs, out of a whole long chain of what makes up inflation and blame everything else on that one item. There’s a very long and very complex chain and interaction between the links in that chain. I’ve already said, I do think that the price of housing in this country has reached stupid levels, but it’s happened and we all have to live with it; you can’t turn the clock back. I’ll say it again, the overwhelming number of house owners who have property which they rent out do not make vast profits from doing so; indeed many private landlords barely make a living what with periods when their properties are empty, when tenants flit without paying the rent, when tenants damage their properties or as happens, strip them bare. All these things have to be factored in to what level of rent which is charged, and by the time they are, if the resultant figure is above that for the property type and size in any area, it won’t be taken and will stand empty. It’s far from as simple as you appear to make it out to be.