Food poverty-the way out

[Cugel]

This seems to have become the housing-poverty thread. Perhaps it might become just the poverty thread, since the DisUK now seems awash in poverties of many kinds?

*********
But to continue on the theme of holiday "homes" et al ..... .

The case of the farmer and his holiday home outbuildings is a good one as its at the focus of the underlying issue - the balance between a community's general interests and the private interests of individuals. Put another way, what should be the balance of rights and duties on any individual participating in various ways within a community's ambit, concerning housing in this instance?

As ever, its complicated by all sorts of particular circumstances. That farmer and his outbuildings - is he building community by making holiday homes there or is he degrading the community in some way? The answer would be in the details and in the ongoing history of that community as it unfolds. It also relies on a set of criteria for judging how a community can be measured as improved or degraded. Different perspectives on that will be taken from various ideological viewpoints.

There'll always be a need for compromise when a polity or community consists of a variety of people with different and sometimes opposing interests. One political philosopher proposes that the key is "justice as fairness". But this begs the question, how do we choose the rules for determining what's fair? The general method is to go by tradition - referencing the often long-gestated community zeitgeists such as moral codes, ethical particulars, laws, customs and all the rest. But sometimes such traditions are weighted with the over-weening interests of the dominant social class.

In the modern world there is, anyway, rarely a coherent and cohesive set of such traditional values available. We import all sorts of novel modes of behaving from here, there and everywhere. World-wide mass media channels now offer us alternative modes of thinking and behaving at an ever-increasing rate. Some see this as cultural pollution (or even cultural appropriation) whilst others see such imports of foreign ways as a refreshing and invigorating stimulus that produces a more vibrant and capable society.

Probably like anyone else in this confused and disintegrating nation of ours, I've become wary of the latter "accelerationist" viewpoint. Change things rapidly and with an intrinsic taste for the radical seems to generate a vast bog of unintended consequences. This is what's happened at so many levels in our nation to produce all kinds of poverties and other ills, as we sought to "improve our lives" by following the paths of often rabid individualism, greedy consuming and the expectation that we should throw out fusty old ways in favour of "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". The so-called free market.

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If that farmer in Wales with his newly-made holiday homes was more community-minded, he might consider aspects of his business wider than the balance of his monetary costs and incomes. Perhaps he would have found a path that improved his income but also improved the community 'round & about beyond giving them a few holiday makers for a few weeks each year who might spend a few quid in the local pub (if it hasn't closed)? But perhaps he did look at all that and decided that this was the limit of his duty to his community? It's no easy matter to make a judgement on.

So should he be subject to laws and penalties designed to discourage the sort of runaway holidayfication of many Welsh villages, until they become empty shells for most of the year, with no community left to take the holiday maker's spend? Hard to know. But such laws can never be fine enough to be fair to every case. On the other hand, perhaps the farmer is a victim of an unintended consequence and his community will now suffer as it becomes moribund for other reasons, without even small improvements that holiday cottages might have generated?

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One way out of such dilemmas would be more positive policies concerning the resources involved that a community is short of. If government (national and local) could provide inexpensive housing via the sort of successful schemes of the past, such as council house building, the issue of a farmer converting his outbuildings to holiday cottages would become a non-issue. You could have both.

West Wales (Wales in general) has thousands of 1940s built council houses of good quality, dotted about every town and village. Gardens front & back; in small cul-de-sacs and similar off main thoroughfares; generally attractive when well-kept. Just think, though, how much better council houses could be built now, technically-speaking, with better insulation, green heating systems and all the other construction technologies that are available. And rented at affordable amounts rather than amounts "decided by the market" (i.e. by greedy exploiters that couldn't give a toss about any community).

There is indeed another way - but it's a well-tested old way with far less unintended consequences than unfettered neolib built-only-for-profit construction currently going on.

Cugel

[Jdsk]

Just think, though, how much better council houses could be built now, technically-speaking, with better insulation, green heating systems and all the other construction technologies that are available. And rented at affordable amounts rather than amounts "decided by the market" (i.e. by greedy exploiters that couldn't give a toss about any community).

Yes.

I don't expect any big improvements in housing in the UK without something along these lines. (But council housing rather than council houses... )

Jonathan

[al_yrpal]

Even with todays crazy prices the young folk in my family all still aspire to eventually own their own homes. Housing Association homes are still needed for those who will never be able to do that though.
I guess I am one of those people who has been guilty of stoking the market by helping my kids achieve home ownership.
What can you do?

Al

[PedallingSquares]

There's a whole load of houses round here rented out by a rich widow living in London. She's never seen them and will likely not give a damn about those who live in them. She's of German extraction. Strangely on this Thursday and Friday a lot of people will be celebrating the fact she inherited the properties 70 years ago.

Good point,well made!

[simonineaston]

helping my kids achieve home ownership

I'm sure if I had children, I'd be doing the same thing.

screenshot of graph showing UK house prices

[simonineaston]

Some see this as cultural pollution (or even cultural appropriation) whilst others see such imports of foreign ways as a refreshing and invigorating stimulus that produces a more vibrant and capable society.

As animals, we were never designed to process this amount of info. We're supposed to only have to deal with choosing which turnip tp dig up or where to run to when the sabre-tooth tiger pops up. We can't make sense of it all anymore. Increasingly we make poor decisions based on the availability of too much info.. It will be the death of us. Truly, the incarnation of the Tower of Babel, innit...

[pete75]

There’s a shortage of housing. Does anyone really wonder why:
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/

If the UK was a bus or a ferry then the doors would be shut to extra passengers, there’s just a limit to what they can legally carry and likewise extra people in the UK go beyond and continue to challenge what the country can support. Second homes might be a problem but it is far from the only problem. It’s a pity that our political classes are all so bent and detached from the real world ‘cause the problems that they’re causing aren’t going to be solved easily.

Data from the migration watch site suggests to me that nett migration over the last twenty years is in the order of five million people. So in that time a group of people equal to half the population of London have come to stay in the UK. That’s a lot of houses, or rather competition for housing.
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/londons-population.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statis ... statistics

I wondered how long it would take for an anti immigrant post. This thread is taking an increasingly xenophobic tone.

[al_yrpal]

But its not xenophobic, its about absorbing very large numbers of people painlessly in a very short period of time

The answer is obvious, we cant at the current rate in our overcrowded island.

Al

[Carlton green]

There’s a shortage of housing. Does anyone really wonder why:
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/

If the UK was a bus or a ferry then the doors would be shut to extra passengers, there’s just a limit to what they can legally carry and likewise extra people in the UK go beyond and continue to challenge what the country can support. Second homes might be a problem but it is far from the only problem. It’s a pity that our political classes are all so bent and detached from the real world ‘cause the problems that they’re causing aren’t going to be solved easily.

Data from the migration watch site suggests to me that nett migration over the last twenty years is in the order of five million people. So in that time a group of people equal to half the population of London have come to stay in the UK. That’s a lot of houses, or rather competition for housing.
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/londons-population.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statis ... statistics

I wondered how long it would take for an anti immigrant post. This thread is taking an increasingly xenophobic tone.

The point that I made and supported with data was about the significant lack of balance in net migration. To read it otherwise misses the point.

[Jdsk]

There’s a shortage of housing. Does anyone really wonder why:
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/

If the UK was a bus or a ferry then the doors would be shut to extra passengers, there’s just a limit to what they can legally carry and likewise extra people in the UK go beyond and continue to challenge what the country can support. Second homes might be a problem but it is far from the only problem. It’s a pity that our political classes are all so bent and detached from the real world ‘cause the problems that they’re causing aren’t going to be solved easily.

Data from the migration watch site suggests to me that nett migration over the last twenty years is in the order of five million people. So in that time a group of people equal to half the population of London have come to stay in the UK. That’s a lot of houses, or rather competition for housing.
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/londons-population.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statis ... statistics

I wondered how long it would take for an anti immigrant post. This thread is taking an increasingly xenophobic tone.

We'll see.

It's perfectly possible to discuss the good and bad effects of immigration and emigration. But it requires discussing the good and bad effects of immigration and emigration. And using the best available data and understanding its limitations.

Jonathan

[pete75]

There’s a shortage of housing. Does anyone really wonder why:
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/

If the UK was a bus or a ferry then the doors would be shut to extra passengers, there’s just a limit to what they can legally carry and likewise extra people in the UK go beyond and continue to challenge what the country can support. Second homes might be a problem but it is far from the only problem. It’s a pity that our political classes are all so bent and detached from the real world ‘cause the problems that they’re causing aren’t going to be solved easily.

Data from the migration watch site suggests to me that nett migration over the last twenty years is in the order of five million people. So in that time a group of people equal to half the population of London have come to stay in the UK. That’s a lot of houses, or rather competition for housing.
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/londons-population.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statis ... statistics

I wondered how long it would take for an anti immigrant post. This thread is taking an increasingly xenophobic tone.

The point that I made and supported with data was about the significant lack of balance in net migration. To read it otherwise misses the point.

Hmm Migration Watch - they make the bullets for the Mail, the Express, Ukip, Farage etc etc to fire. It's an organisation with a fairly rightist agenda.

"While the group describes itself as independent and non-political,it has been characterised as a right-wing lobby or pressure group by some commentators and academics.

It has been argued that MigrationWatch's messages "can be taken advantage of by people with Islamophobia and prejudice". The accuracy of the group's research has also been questioned. David Robinson, Professor of Housing and Public Policy at Sheffield Hallam University, argues that the group's assertion that immigrants are placing strain on social housing lacks evidence. Economist Philippe Legrain has claimed that "MigrationWatch's xenophobic prejudice is causing it to twist the truth" about the impact of immigration on the employment prospects of British people.
Similarly, in February 2013, Migration Matters, an organisation chaired by former Labour MP Barbara Roche and co-chaired by then-Conservative MP Gavin Barwell, criticised the BBC for treating MigrationWatch's analysis as politically neutral.[88]

In 2014, Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research complained to the Press Complaints Commission that articles in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph about the net amount of tax paid by Eastern European migrants, which were based on MigrationWatch statistics, were inaccurate. The two newspapers amended the articles in response.

Other commentators have criticised what they see as the media uncritically reproducing the findings of MigrationWatch in their own reporting. Academics Nissa Finney and Ludi Simpson in 2009 stated that while they believed the evidence used by MigrationWatch to be questionable, it received prominence in migration debates and had assumed an authority which they considered to be "dangerous if there is no similar authority presenting counterarguments"."

[Jdsk]

In 2014, Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research complained to the Press Complaints Commission that articles in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph about the net amount of tax paid by Eastern European migrants, which were based on MigrationWatch statistics, were inaccurate. The two newspapers amended the articles in response.

IIRC Migration Watch didn't correct their own statement.

I don't consider it a reliable source. But of course it might raise important points.

Jonathan

[al_yrpal]

Then, as an expert Googler look up reliable figures for emigration and immigration and determine the net increase in population. Can you also determine how many more or less dwellings are needed to house them and compare this with accurate figures of how many extra dwellings are currently being created

Please...

Al

[Jdsk]

The most convenient and accessible recent short overview of the data is:

"Migrants and Housing in the UK: Experiences and Impacts":
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... d-impacts/

Of course that's only about housing and doesn't take into account any other effects of migration such as contribution to the economy or the public or private labour force.

Jonathan

[Carlton green]

As Migration Watch is contentious I suggest another source of data, the ONS.

“ Based on our current best assessment of available sources, net migration was estimated to be in the region of 239,000 in the year ending June 2021; there is a degree of uncertainty around today’s figures, but this represents a small decrease from the year ending June 2020 (260,000).”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... l/june2021

Maybe I’m not reading the data correctly - it’s not completely up to date either but it covers a long time span - but the World Bank seems to agree that the UK has significantly more people migrating to it than from it.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM ... cations=GB

Here’s another data source that I’d expect to be as reliable as can be found and it too supports my earlier data comments:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/re ... s/sn06077/

One might also choose to look at this site: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... on-growth/
It seems to be fairly clear that net migration has a very - perhaps the most - significant input to UK population growth and whether purchased or rented a growing population competes for accommodation to live in.