£100,000 Council tenants

Some times you really wonder what planet some wealthy Conservatives lives on!

The latest little red herring is that Council Tenants living on £100,000 should lose their council homes.

So those over 3,000 Mendip citizens waiting for an affordable home ought not hold their breath waiting for too many homes coming on stream.

We are seeing a utter shambles in Conservative thinking on affordable housing,on one hand the Conservatives say Council housing is populated by work shy and now Council housing is populated by wealthy people blocking homes for people to aspire.

The real truth is housing is becoming unaffordable, to buy, in Mendip over 12 times salary and no chance of an affordable rent and having to rent in the private sector, where rents at best are £100 pw for a one bed property in the Town Centre.

People who frequent the real world know, real income has been falling for several years, with annual pay rises a distant reality. Living standards are under the same strain as in the 1920's. The people in unskilled and semi skilled jobs has seen their incomes in decline in real terms since the 1980's. With other professions such as doctors, lawyers have seen their income double in the same period.

The effects of globalisation has seen well paid manufacturing jobs go abroad and low paid service jobs have replaced them.

Whilst politicians spend much of their time talking about social mobility, in reality this has stalled, the thirty year experiment of the market is best, needs to be re-thought, social mobility is important but so is security, governments need to understand that low paid service industry workers need the social wage and a key element of the social wage is secure affordable housing.

A balanced housing market is good for the economy, no more housing boom, of pent up housing demand funded by funny financial products, homes are to be lived in, this is the basis of community, not a financial opportunity, the difference between knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

This is something the Conservatives have never understood.