john souray
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Comments (52)
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Comment on: Government considers ombudsman merger
It's not "rubbish". It's an accurate count of the cases reported as "latest" on their website. You need to learn some manners. It's not acceptable to falsely denounce a statement as "rubbish", especially when you snivel from behind the cowardly cover of anonymity.
Following up your reference to the annual reports, I've found these and the most recent figure is 8%, which true enough is very different, though it's a high rather than low single figure. Not every other case is found in the landlord's favour (many are "outside jurisdiction"), though that category is still much higher than those found for the complainant. So what's going on here? Was that selective reporting, in the cases I found? As I indicated in my first posting, I am willing to listen to evidence, but what's needed is sensible discussion, not mindless cowardly abuse. -
Comment on: Where is housing’s white knight?
Social housing needs a "white knight", does it?
Nice choice of metaphor. Couldn't you have added "crusader", just to complete the job? Even so, it certainly puts those old "po-faced" PC brigade lefty dinosaurs in their place.
Oh, that's me! Well, never mind, I am reproached. -
Comment on: Government considers ombudsman merger
This is not the first thread in the last few days to dismiss bitterly the effectiveness of the Housing Ombudsman.
If you go to the Housing Ombudsman's website you can find links to the most recent ("latest") 100 judgements. By my count 37 of these find no maladministration, 63 find maladministration. That is to say, 63 out of a 100 find in the complainant's favour.
Having heard Shapps (and Clegg, on the subject of HB, which I don't think he understands) on the radio (whoever thought "You and Yours" would carry out an incisive interview, and mention Inside Housing?) I am extremely suspicious of their cutting programme, including the loss of the TSA, and I am very willing to listen to evidence of bias or ineffectiveness in the Ombudsman service. But I think critics do have to substantiate their allegations, or explain how I've misinterpreted these results, because the evidence on the face of it is completely against them. -
Comment on: ALMO makes U-turn over England flag ban
I understand Dante describes one of the ditches in the eighth circle of Hell as having to sit in on a focus group of aggrieved Daily Mail readers.
Rhubarb rhubarb .... elf' 'n safety ...blah blah .... supposed to call it winterval .... chunter chunter ... apparently they're all illegal immigrants ... not allowed to fly the English flag ... PC brigade .... banned them singing Baa baa Black sheep ... you couldn't make it up ...
.... for all eternity. -
Comment on: CLG decides where the axe will fall
Thank-you, Simon Stokes, for cheering me up this morning and giving me something to laugh about.
"..please lets stop this endless blame game, we are in this mess and need to look forward instead of always looking back and blaming someone else."
But Mr Stokes, blaming other people is all you ever do!
You blame tenants for having unreasonable expectations and failing to express due gratitude, you blame overcrowded families for having children, and you blame your managers for .... well it's not quite clear what for, except probably, for not being you.
Discussions (1)
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Anonymous contributions
While I think that in general pseudonyms are greatly overused on the internet, and have led to a serious decline in standards of debate as people don't have to take responsibility for wh
Posts (24)
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Posted in: Anonymous contributions
While I think that in general pseudonyms are greatly overused on the internet, and have led to a serious decline in standards of debate as people don't have to take responsibility for what they say, I fully understand that many valuable contributions may come onto these forums from housing professionals who can't be seen to be speaking for their employers.
But your recent innovation of allowing an "Anonymous" option is catastrophic. It is making some threads almost unreadable. You might think that the sense of a contribution ought to be self-contained, but that isn't a dialogue or discussion. It's just a Pinteresque succession of statements of people talking past each other. You often need to refer to other contributions or your own previous ones, and there are so many "Anonymous" contributors that it is becoming impossible to work out who's saying what or even responding to what.
By all means allow pseudonyms, but please make people pick something distinctive, even if it's just a code number.
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Posted in: The World Cup
Oh dear, I should know better, but...
Kass: "I haved (sic) seen many posts removed..."; maybe, but I'm not writing about them. I'm writing about this particular one, and the peculiar values involved in removing it.
"The point is why should anyone spend time and energy...". No it isn't. The primary function of these forums is to advance understanding of social housing, not provide gratification for participants.
"Once published ... a post would not be removed" - I agree (within obvious legal limits), but that's not the point I was making. I was pointing to the curious scale of values that removes a mildly xenophobic gibe yet leaves in place much more vicious hate-mongering racism. Do you not agree that this is distorted, or is it that you actually support ILAG's anti-immigration agenda?
"Inside Housing fora (sic) and commentaries should not promote values....". What? Not even the value of freedom of speech and open discussion? And my expression was "stand for", not "promote". In making editorial decisions, you cannot help but make value judgements, and in doing so, you "stand for" them.
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Posted in: The World Cup
To the editor/moderator
You've removed the post of "Harry Lime", which as I recall contained a childish gibe against the French (not in themselves an oppressed, excluded or vulnerable minority). Yet you continue to leave in place the relentless hate-mongering rants against immigrants, Somalis, Muslims, teenage parents etc. perpetrated by ILAG and others.
I think you need to have a long hard think about how you conduct these forums, and what values you want Inside Housing to stand for.
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Posted in: House Proud
I can't support that petition. Any oil found in what we call the Falklands should primarily be for the benefit of underdeveloped S American economies.
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Posted in: CARELESS HOUSING ASSOCIATION
ILAG: If Joe Halewood is a consultant, you can discover that because he posts here using his real name (as do I).
You, on the other hand, deliver your poisonous hate-mongering rants from behind the snivelling cowardly cover of a pseudonym.