Yet, we are currently watching one of the most sterile political debates ever inflicted on the TV viewing public with candidates of all colours spewing out pre-rehearsed party lines on a limited range of big “ishoos” with red lines and other postures being all the rage. It’s a shame that even at local level there is little or no evidence that any of our prospective leaders or representatives are listening to real people. Any prospect of all this nonsense changing for the better within the next 5 – 10 years ?

When I say ‘workhouse’, I mean the living environment rather than work and what I was trying to say is that the tenancy arrangements are a step forward from living on a Ward. I started my working life on such a Ward and there were many problems, the patients were institutionalised, wore shared clothing, staff ratios were extremely low and there was much cross infection.

There is an interesting history, pre WW2 the learning disability hospitals means tested and the care was not too bad because the hospitals were not full but after WW2 with the NHS middle class people put their children in hospital often urged by medics. This had unintended consequences and they became overloaded, and underfunded hence the scandals (some in Wales) in the 1960s, then the push to close them.

Wales did lead the way through the All Wales Strategy, but has lost direction since devolution, debates surface occasionally but there is a lack of real commitment at the centre. The current arrangements of using housing associations do provide some good accommodation (it is not true that most live in poor areas) and is better than institutional care. I would agree with you Brychan about Remploy too, sadly the anti institutional debate has been used by politicians determined to close them using the rhetoric of de-institutionalisation. This was aided and abetted by more able service users to the detriment of those less able to advocate for themselves.

Enough of the social history and sorry for hijacking Jac’s blog.

Well said!

I’m not sure I agree, adarynefoedd. When I first started work for underground there used to be a shift of such residents from a type of local ‘hospital’ you describe. They used to work in the lamp room and wash down the pithead baths and employed by the NCB. It was a tradition inherited from one of the more ‘philanthropic’ coal owners. I think you’re wrong to say this type of employment is ‘work-house’. They were paid the same rates as any other surface worker. When this ‘hospital’ closed, their wages were paid in-kind to a Remploy scheme assembling electronic components. Hoovers has a similar scheme for factory floor cleaners and tooling stores. The colliery is now closed, as has the Remploy scheme. Alas, the new generation of poor unfortunates are on benefits and imprisoned in social housing. Things have changed but I do know someone who now works on the bins, with an arts degree. I think it’s sheer arrogance to suggest that somehow a form of gainful employment of those who lived in ‘hospice’ accommodation are not capable of living without state benefits and need their lives to be run by shyster third sector organisations, creaming commission on state benefits. Certainly not dumped into Wales to keep ‘undesirables’ out of the leafy suburbs of England. Those with physical or mental challenges should have the same access as anyone else to gainful employment, not imprisoned into poor housing by the third sector ‘care’ industry.

Of course you’re right, only a heartless bastard could disagree. But with the best will in the world it’s quite obvious that a) within Wales, Swansea is being dumped on and b) within this glorious Union Wales, particularly the north coast, is being dumped on. If we are being fair, then let’s share out the responsibilities, and practice that English saying, ‘Charity begins at home’.

Unless your ideal Wales comprises nobody with disabilities, no homeless people and happy, stable relationships, this kind of provision is essential unless we go back to hospitals and workhouses.

There are still question, I agree about pull factors and the on costs of some of these organisations, but do not lump them all together. Meanwhile an interesting Radnorshire tale from pre Welfare State provision ie nowhere to go http://terrydrayton.wix.com/knighton#!william-edward-lucas/c22xa

in those darker moments I imagine that we are in a period akin to the decline and fall of the (any) empire. When a society promotes such “achievements” onto a pedestal and tells its kids that those “achievers” are sound role models then we’ve given ourselves a short fuse ! Green may have done well to climb out of his personal difficulty but in reality he’s now treading on hundreds of others in celebrating his success. Now he may be one of the (very few) benevolent landlords but the silence from happy tenants is deafening.

Later this week we’ll have a new government with a new mandate, it will wave it’s stick/wand and all our problems will be solved. Oh tut, I’m having that odd dream again, must change my medication !

Even worse, it is bizarrely very much easier to obtain a Buy to Let mortgage than a normal residential homeowner one. There are stringent rules about a homeowner being able to repay the capital during the term that do not apply to a Buy to Let mortgage as it is simply an investment vehicle. Therefore Buy To Let buyers have a considerable advantage in the housing market.

Housing is an absolute mess. All parties promise to build ‘enough’ new homes and make things easier for new buyers, and they all know they won’t do it. To make it possible for everybody who wanted to buy a home to be able buy one, or to build enough to meet the demand, would result in a dramatic fall in the value of everyone else’s home. There would be riots on Acacia Avenue. It’s a simple case of supply and demand, flood the market with lots of new houses and the price will drop.

The picture is then complicated, and prices inflated beyond the reach of too many potential buyers by the ‘Buy to Let’ mortgage, designed solely for investors of the type we see in the lists I’ve reproduced. What is the justification for ‘Buy to Let’? What purpose does it serve beyond inflating house prices and denying people the chance of home ownership?

Torfaenwr and Treforus have identified that some tenants pay HB direct to their private landlords. There is therefore an unquantifiable figure missing from what we’ve gleaned from the Daily Mirror exercise, so God knows what the ceiling figure for HB might be. To me, the figures you have reproduced for amount of HB per head of population is bad enough. We have £311 or £321 for Wales as a whole depending which you choose. But these are for the whole population including all those who make no contribution to the pot like children (approximately 20% of population under 16?), and the economically inactive, many of whom will pay no income tax and usually no national insurance. We all end up paying indirect taxation like VAT of course. But the figure for each of us who pay tax in Wales towards this benefit must therefore be considerably higher. Who knows – could it be £500 plus, £600 plus – even more? And about one third of this overall figure seems to be being pocketed by private landlords. I’m more than a bit pissed off with this. Especially knowing one of the bigger claimants in the Neath patch. To think my taxes are keeping the bastard in a manner of which most of us can only dream!

Napoleon called England a nation of shopkeepers. We are fast becoming a nation of landlords with some of the population owning goodness knows how many homes, while many even “middle class” young people struggle to get on the housing ladder, albeit with good incomes and virtually zero interest rates. When I was a kid, no-one I knew had more than one house and houses were homes for families to live in, not to soak up working people’s taxes to line the pockets of investors and chancers. It will all come to no good in the end.