PokerTime

Some time this afternoon. Follow this link for the ward results as they come in.... http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/1000/5_previous_election_results/3486/2014_council_elections

I'm as confused as you rahrah.

I totally agree grabot.

No problem rahrah :) Parkdrive, all the parties base their campaigns on telling us who to vote for (ie them) don't they?

I agree with that, but people aren't looking at the real implications of a UKIP government when they decide to vote for them.

From the results in so far, all the main parties have a real problem. It's easy to brand UKIP voters as simpletons and nationalists, but there's something else going on imo. UKIP are doing really well in the Midlands and the North, and parts of the South coast, Kent etc. We have an economy and policies that have shut down upward social mobility and ordinary working families in ordinary areas are feeling it. They are working harder with less to show for it and their children are really struggling to find jobs. When you have a political elite, who are disconnected from that, and the wake of a financial distaster like the banking crisis, where the culprits haven't suffered and it seems like business as usual to many, defection to parties like UKIP is what happens. Farage is as elitist as the rest of them, but he does a better job of playing the common man than Cameron, Clegg and Miliband.

More UKIP chuckles.... http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/21-reasons-people-on-twitter-say-theyre-voting-ukip?bffb

Exactly SJ. Many of those affected by Bedroom Tax have never been in arrears before. It's been a huge problem for Local Authorities everywhere.

Have you read any of the posts above roundabout? Firstly, money is not used from the Housing Revenue Account to pay for public services. Funding for those comes from Council Tax and central government. So rent arrears are completely irrelevant in respect to those things. 60% of those in arrears are in arrears because of Bedroom Tax - a welfare reform that Labour have pedged to abolish because of the harm it has done. The council have no smaller properties to move those people into. What would be your solution then? And btw there are only 40,000 households (the rest being leaseholders) and those arrears apply to 24,000 of them.

From southwarks own figures, there are 55,000 social properties in Southwark. Of those properties, approx 40,000 are tenanted and the rest leasehold. Here is a very good document that highlights the demography of Southwarks Housing Stock. The report was chaired by the very capable Gavin Edwards, with cross party support. http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s32592/Appendix%201%20Investing%20in%20Council%20Housing.pdf It states that; Two-thirds of current tenants are not economically active. Many are pensioners and carers. and that.... The incomes of council tenants are low, with 70% on incomes below ?20,000. The median income is ?9,100, far below the borough average and five times less than that of home owners. It's not hard to see why, with welfare reforms, some 40% of tenants have encountered difficulty. Who in their right mind, would point to this, and claim that council incompetance is to blame? People have to be housed somewhere - including the low paid and unemployed. Most of them arrive at social housing (for many credible reasons). But of course, we've been fed a media onslaught of capable scroungers and employed people taking advantage of cheap housing. You know what? Thanks to the internet, it takes minutes to find the truth behind the soundbites. The internet is full of easily accessible (and highly credible) sources of data and figures. I just wish people would find the time to find out for themselves before posting the nonsense the OP has.

It's not but there has to be some understanding of why that is. 40% of council tenants in properties affected by bedroom tax. What is a local authority to do if they don't have smaller proporties to move them into? This is the major flaw of bedroom tax! Sure you can move them into smaller but private rented sector properties, but do you have any idea of the additional cost to the HB bill? And add to that, that because of HB reform the number of private rented sector landlords prepared to rent to HB claimants has shrunk remarkably. It's not the impact the government expected. I can't think of a more ill thought out policy by central government. Here's a stark example of what I'm talking about. In my documentary I compare a local authority called Sefton to London. It would take Sefton council 15 years to rehouse all the single people in two bedroom properties (on HB ) according to the number of one bedroomed properties that become available every year. What is an LA like that supposed to do? This is a sanction that took into no account, underoccupancy vs available social housing stock. It doesn't matter what side of the fence you sit politically, from a fiscal viewpoint, the lack of research and shaping of policy as a result, makes no sense, unless you apply an idealogy (of bashing the poorest). Edited to add; Loz I think you are an intelligent poster. I am more than happy to explain to you the impact of bedroom tax (or HB reform). You can't punish people at the bottom of the ladder with no equally affordable alternative to escape to. Bedroom tax ONLY affects people in social housing. There are many recorded cases of people who should be exempt (like the disabled and those in low paid jobs) being affected. The DWP is currently in a mess...and it can take more than year for the poor claimant trying to sort it out to get anywhere.

Roudabout...I'de love to have a discussion with you on this....especially on the eve of a local election.....

But Loz....most of those arrears are dealing with people at the bottom of the ladder, some of whom have mental health issues and so on. That's where these people end up, under the wing of local authority provision. Considering that Southwark is such a huge social housing provider, arrears are actually a small farction of it's HA account revenue.

Also, rent arrears only affect the Housing Revenue Account. It's not a measure of delivery of other council services. Southwark is one of the biggest social housing providers in the capital and the country. ?8 million, whilst no small sum in itself, is also diminished proportionately whithin the realm of it's size. If we accept that 59% of those arrears (approx) are down to coalition reforms on Housing Benefit, then we are looking at a real figure of ?3.2 million. Currently HB pays directly to the council. And some tenants are required to pay a supplement in addition (depending on circumstances). Things will get worse when Universal Payment is rolled out.

I do remember posting on another thread more detailed stats on this. I think it was a general housing debate. I will try and find those stats. There is no doubt that bedroom tax has impacted massively on arrears. But I'll find the accurate figures to support that. Edited to add; 'Inside Housing' I have found to be reliable source of stats analysis during my research into a current project on Housing issues (now spanning a year of detailed research). we all rely on DWP published figures as a starting point, and look at poor individual management as a variable factor. The vast majority of people affected, are people who want to downsize, but the local authority has nowhere to downsize them to.

I take your point Grabot. It's not my style to insult and I apologise to Villager for my sarcasm, and that's a genuine apology. All viewpoints are valid in a forum, and momentarily I forgot that. There's no right or wrong on the detail of Europe, which is why I said some of my points are open to debate (I even have informed retorts to my own points). I was just trying to illustrate how no debate of any sort has happened. The EU has become some kind of B&W issue and UKIP has been able to exploit that, on a single issue it seems. I would love to engage in a detailed debate with a UKIP supporter on the detail of europe.

There ya go......an increase of tenants in arrears from 25% to 60% thanks to *drum roll*......BEDROOM TAX.....ta-dah!!!! http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/southwark-to-take-1m-from-housing-budget-to-help-bedroom-tax-victims/6528795.article Geez...must do better if you really want to suggest that both Con and Lib Dem are a better alternative to Labour (who have pledged to abolish said tax in a General Election) on the eve of a local election....

And how much of those arrears are due to the coalition induced bedroom tax????? Do I really need to post figures????

A couple of other threads on this you might find useful... http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?20,1288821,1288855#msg-1288855 http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1286466,page=1

Villager, you are a perfect example of the kind of sucker that UKIP seeks. There a many reasons why UKIP would be a disaster for this country, as LadyD's post above illustrates perfectly. But just on Europe, here are some things you might want to consider. 50% of our exports go to the EU. Because membership of the EU is membership of a free market, our businesses do not have to pay tariffs, import taxes or worry about quotas. I suggest you take a look at the tariffs that non-members have to pay and consider the damage that would do to business in the UK. That single market is a magnet for foreign investment. Millions of pounds of investment have come to the UK from large companies and service providers because of the access to that single market. And then there is competiton law. That EU law is the reason why government departments have to put contracts out to tender. There is something called structural funding. It is a pot of money the EU doles out to help deprived areas. Aside from the billions already given to the UK (for things like infrastructure) England will receive over ?6 billion, Wales ?2 billion, Scotland ?795 million, and Northern Ireland ?457 million over the next five years. Workers rights are perhaps the most important thing to consider. Four weeks paid holiday a year, the 48 hour working week, anti-discrimination law, guaranteed rights for agency workers, worker consultation, all exist because of the EU. Anyone who thinks the free market economists that dominate British politics are interested in any of those kinds of workers rights is misguided. And let's not forget that 5 million Brits live and/or work in Europe. We are free to travel too, without having to apply for visas etc. Being part of the EU makes the fight against international crime easier too. We are benefactors of the European Arrest Warrant. If we want the EU to work in Britain?s interests, then we need to be involved in EU decision-making. If we leave, there will be no one to stand up for our interests when decisions are made that affect us, such as changes to trade or investment laws. There are counter arguments to some of those points, of course. But rarely (in fact never) do I see anyone voting for UKIP engage in that kind of debate. Here's a chance now though Villager, for you to have a stab at it.

As little as 300,000 votes can swing a national election. Truth is that all the parties work on gaining the floating vote. It's already a given that we swing between being a slightly left and slightly right of centre country politically. So the main parties seek to occupy that ground, and then battle for the rest with a few key concessionary policies. One of the reasons why New Labour for example got elected, is because it could occupy the centre ground as Conservative Thatcherism swung out to the right. Farage is a rabble rouser, and we are in an age where the media loves rabble rousers. We've been here before, when the BNP picked up a few seats here and there, the media hype and rhetoric was the same. The fact remains that most people who vote, still vote for one of the three main parties.

In an interview on LBC with James O'Brien, Farage said that;- 'He had an issue with people speaking in foreign languages in London.' 'He had an issue with Romanians, especially if they moved in next door to him. Germans apparently are ok (his wife is German).' 'He quantified his issues with Romanians with traffickers and crime.' Over that kind of idiotic tripe Sniffer, I'll take cultural marxists anyday.

James brought party politics into when he used this thread to link to his party manifesto, because an election is coming up, which is why a Labour councillor has had to reply. James, you are very selective on which points you respond to. The idea that the current coalition somehow supports council housing more than the previous Labour government is a joke right? When the coalition have increased the discount on right to buy by how much? When the coalition favours home building by HAs over LAs? When the coalition has sought to remove secure tenancies and increase social rents to market value? When the coalition has cut the central funding to the decent homes scheme? I'm not diagreeing that the whole E&C redevelopment is is cross party repsonsibility. The whole thing has been mismanaged and conflict of interest is also a cross party thing. All parties involved ahould be ashamed of the result. But you stay silent on lies and scaremongering in Local libdem electioneering. Silent on the dabarkle of the repairs service...... The call centre and it's issues were well publicised at the time by the Local Press. The cost of implementation was high, the volume of calls processed low and poor value. The councils own budget books lists the cost of this venture (referred to as the contact centre) at ?13.7million being spent per annum to process just 2.4 million calls, across 200 services. I agree with ruffers and have no desire to this thread into a hustings, so won't post on this again. You do a good job of responding to issues raised by local residents but just leave the party politics out of it.

LOL. There is a really good reason for that. I can only drink the tea when it's at a particular temperature. But what often happens is that by the time I get halfway down the cup, it it no longer at the right temperature! Ok, just me?

Quite KK, I'm squirming at the thought of it :D For me, Tea is bag in first. Allow boiled water to cool slightly before pouring in. And then when I put the milk in, I pour it until it comes back to the top. That for me is the perfect amount of milk. And then.....to squeeze or not to squeeze - the teabag that is! I'm a bit of a squeezer.