The News In Shorts

How the news would look if everyone stopped waffling and told the truth.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Osborne Stokes The Fire That Has Already Burned Us.

There is little doubt that you would have to travel a long way to find a bigger economic ignoramus that Gideon (call me George) Osborne. His economic record, despite the over-heated hype of his spin doctors, is truly woeful. Not only has he managed to slow down to a crawl the economic recovery put in train by the last Labour government, he has slashed living standards of ordinary people in this country, missed every one of his growth and spending targets and managed to get property inflation going once again. In a country that needs 220,000 new houses every year he has failed to meet even half of this target, restricting supply when demand has never been higher. While the smug and self-satisfied rich own 2.3 million second homes, millions in this country are forced to pay excessive rents for the one third of ex-council houses that have found their way into the hands of unscrupulous and greedy buy-to-rent landlords. The Coalitions answer to this disastrous situation is to impose a bedroom tax on the poor to force them further into poverty or, worse, onto the streets so their former homes can be rented to those willing and able to pay more for them. Osborne, meanwhile, has reinvented subprime lending on the basis that it has been such an unqualified success in the past. His "Help To Buy" housing policy has encouraged the creation of a new mortgage lender, Magellan Homeloans, who are set to lend up to £400,000 to borrowers described by the new company as having 'experienced one-off event resulting in adverse credit record'. In other words, subprime borrowers. This brilliant idea is the brainchild of Matt Gilmour whose previous triumphs in this area have included Unity Homeloans which went bankrupt in 2008 in the wake of the banking crisis that was itself the result of reckless subprime lending. The truth is that the only way that Osborne and his Tory pals can protect the value of their property portfolios is to artificially keep prices high by restricting supply while this, in turn, can only be supported by granting mortgages on over-priced properties to those who can't really afford them. Way to go Ozzie! Is there any village out there missing an idiot?

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