IDS on 'Right to Buy ghettoisation'

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

This timely gem came to me just now by way of a keyword search of the Community Care online magazine website:

Iain Duncan Smith admits ghettoisation under Tory housing policy(1)

By Mike McNabb on 25 March , 2009 in Uncategorised

Conservative MPs are famous for having their epiphany moments: Michael Portillo’s (3) face at his constituency’s general election count in 1997 signified his; former party leader William Hague, who fought the 2001 general election as the scourge of asylum seekers, now deputises for David ”hoodie hugger” Cameron; and then there is Iain Duncan Smith.

Smith has now admitted that ”right-to-buy”, the keystone of housing policy of the Thatcher/Major years, was perhaps not such a good idea after all.(4)

For a Tory, Smith has been taking an unnatural interest in social justice recently through the medium of his think tank.(5) But his comment that the right-to-buy scheme has ghettoised those who could not afford to take up the kind offer is revealing. It would have been easier to direct his barbs at a Britain ”broken” by Labour.

He says of the Thatcher administration’s right-to-buy policy: ”We didn’t have any real sense of where this might go and what needed to happen. Big social reforms should have taken place then, and they never did. While the economy was moving on, society was not. Swathes of the population got left behind.”

Moreover, Smith’s coments were made to the Fabian Society,(6) not known for its espousal of all things Tory.

The question must be asked: where is Smith heading? It couldn’t surely be a case of ”by the left, quick march!” Could it?

That keyword search included the search term mcnabb. Mike McNabb wrote the Community Care 'Social Policy' blog until his services were dispensed with by Community Care in 2011. Given his output on such matters as CareUK, I would not be in the least bit surprised if Mike McNabb's services were disposed of on account of advertisers' pressures.(7)

How times have changed for this 2015 UK General Election Conservative Party Manifesto! (8)

See also Bob Holman's blog piece: Poor must meet Gordon.(9)

Notes

(1) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2009/03/iain-duncan-smith-admits-ghett/

(2) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/MikeMcNabb/

(3) Michael Portillo links has fallen to 'page rot' that happens over the years

(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/duncan-smith-attacks-key-thatcherite-policy-1651728.html

(5) http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/

(6) Fabian Society link has fallen to 'page rot' that happens over the years

(7)  CareUK mcnabb link: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/search-results/?q=right%20to%20buy%20mcnabb

(8) http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/right-to-buy-extension-david-cameron-is.html

(9) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2008/02/poor-must-meet-gordon/