Yobs with Dogs: Another "needs" based allocation outcome

20/08/2009 8:00 am

You extreme lefties always have to get so personal don't you? The crack dealing, dog fighting feral scum who get priority housing under the current basket case of an allocation system are a curse to their merit allocated older neighbours and to the general community. Yet you persist in defending the indefensible? And anyone who questions it is a "moronic fascist". You really are a deeply sad po-faced lefty ideologue aren't you? I have a right to post stories here that back up my position on allocations policy (which is now far more flexible following the Newham decision in the HoL) and if you don't like to hear it, well, tough.

20/08/2009 9:44 am

ILAG - im not going to comment on your response except to say this.

You have made your views known as to needs based allocations and its limitations and effects. So why not create a thread here on allocations or the better system you have in mind. Then the issue can be discussed without any need for personal slights or labelling.

You know i disagree with your opinion on the improvements you propose and im no fan of the current system either. So a genuine discussion oin issues is welcome and healthy for debate.

21/08/2009 7:54 am

You are familiar with priority being given to crack dealing, dog fighting feral scum. It's just called "needs" based allocation by the middle class hand-wringing sandal wearers who brought this curse into existence. The more so-called "problems" a criminal type has, the more likely the creature will be allocated a flat under the current system. The first criteria for allocation is being on benefits. Then add on additional points for any acts of random criminality (for which of course society is to blame, never the criminal). Add on more bonus points for a crack or heroin habit. Then, he presto, have a flat in a stable community of tenants who were allocated under the older Merit based system and make their life hell. Proceed to breed wolverines in order to sell on to other criminal types who have been similarly allocated and steal as many bikes as possible. This is the reality of "needs" based allocation in Islington.
In prime Central London, nobody should be allocated a social tenancy unless they are in work. We have two thirds of social tenants on benefits already, up from one third in the 1980's, and do not need to increase this percentage further. In my area, 60% of 16-34 year olds have NEVER worked. Even when the economy was good. This is unnacceptable. Work is the pre-condition for tenancy. Should the tenant loose their job this would NOT affect the tenancy. However being in work would be required to get one in the first place. A criminal records check would also be required. A record of street robbery, theft or violence against the person would disqualify.
London is the engine of the UK economy. London LA's should not be housing those who refuse to contribute and make life hell for those around that do. Those who choose to spend a lifetime on benefits in social housing can do it someone else where there is more accomodation available eg Hull.

21/08/2009 10:47 am

Dear John

Personally ive never venerated nurses the way that mainstream society tends to - Ive realised now that this positioned was wrong.

Professionally never liked the keyworker programme either, but i see now why the government wants them to be able to live in Islington.

Pity Grouchos not with us - he could advise us on whether leaseholders contracts contain a Sanity Clause

21/08/2009 12:20 pm

Who's a loony?

The Islington Gazette reports the same story with an addendum.

A 34-year-old man is helping police with their inquiries about the possession of class A, B and C drugs as well as the possession of firearms.

This being Britain we are obliged to withhold judgement on the guilt or innocence of this individual.

But in practical terms I would rather side with the more jaundiced sic realistic view set out by Ilag.

And just as a matter of information Islington Council's housing department shares Ilag's view. They have begun to monitor tenancies where there are dangerous breeds of dogs present. They clearly believe there is a link between dogs, drugs, crime and anti-social behaviour ("feral scumbags", using Ilag's register).

Just who are the loonies?

21/08/2009 2:10 pm

Wot. An anally-challenged logica positivist on Inside Housing ...still. It takes all sorts, I suppose.

I share Ilag's views. Or rather I share many of his assumptions and prescriptions. To confuse what he says with how he says it and then to collectively go off on one about sanity suggests you're criticising someone with criticism which could just as well be levelled at yourself.

In other words, in philosophical terms, you've disappeared up your own anus.

Strip out Ilag's theatrical turn of phrase and I defy you to find a nanomicro hair between his views and those of say, Anthony Giddens, Demos, Frank Field, John Healey and every social housing tenant facing a job with a dog.

I would strongly suggest you guys look at The Wire. It's all there, the really big issues of life and death. Pity is that you'd all self-evidentally pick up on the language rather than the meaning. (Omar is a hero of mine though he has a character flaw - other characters don't live long when he's around)

21/08/2009 3:50 pm

Yobs with dogs. And yobs with words.

The Wire. Fictional? Or even FICTIONAL. Well, I never.

Someone around here is just a tad literal.

The point I was making abouthe The Wire is that complex moral dilemmas (goodies being baddies/baddies being goodies) underpin a veneer of fruity street slang.

To pick up on the street slang is to miss the whole point. Is that literal enough for you, Castro?

Ditto Ilag. He has expressed views here which are mainstream. When everyone including Uncle Tom Cobbley and his dog is talking about the desirability of "mixed communities" or "affordable housing" you can bet these honeyed euphemisms are being deployed because they play better than talking about feral scumbags with killer dogs living on state-handouts, as Ilag opines.

I see no difference between the meaning of the two statements. The code of the former just requires a bit of work to be deconstructed.

By extension, for example, the desirability of a mixed community is predicated on the assumption that a monocultural/monotenured community is bad which is predicated on the assumption that a community made entirely of social housing is bad which is predicated on the assumption that such a community will be living on welfare which is predicated on the assumption that such a community will have low levels of education and so on and on ... which brings you close to Ilag's point of view and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.

21/08/2009 8:52 pm

"Needs-based" rather than "choice-based" letting - Sancho is making real progress this term in his use of English.

Either way, it's a mechanism for generating horrendous communities by crystallising the poor into social housing and make them poorer still.

Worse, it offers a perverse incentive for the marginal to join the poor - the higher the need the greater the priority.

"Choice-based letting" - doncha just luv NuLab for their Kafkaesque linguistic interventions. Worse than Thatcherite surely. She at least looked you in the eye and told you the score.

Sometime next year NuLab will be terminated with extreme prejudice. No doubt they will accept the vote as a positive endorsement of policy catastrophe.

22/08/2009 0:39 am

Another spaceman with a collection of plausible cliches.

Read the posts. Read the logic. Read the argument. And then tell us what you think. Not a pre-digested set of duff immutable truths that you, no doubt, trot out on each and every occasion.

"The politics of choice offers opportunity for all". Oh, shut up. Choice isn't choice, matey. It's a scam phrase used by the Labour Party to win votes.

"Choice-based" letting is, in reality, "needs-based" letting. We've got that far. Gettit. Go back. Read it. Castro has got that far.

And needs-based letting is a recipe for a social disaster which in some cities we've got. I don't know if Castro is with us yet on that one.

Now, I suggest a cold bath and while you're at it drown that merry band of screaming cliches and homilies of nonsense between your ears.

The pity is you're clearly not a stormtooper. A gerbil without a half-decent clause, more like.

22/08/2009 0:52 am

CW: "How do people become so twisted into labelling all social tenants with the same brush"

Who is labelling all social tenants with the same brush? Surely it is you. And the the Patrician Left. Society is to blame, never the actions of the individual. Come on, grow up, you're not a kiddy any more, are you?

I have quite clearly stated that that the majority of social tenants, allocated as they have been under the old Merit based system are perfectly decent and the very victims of the vermin that you middle class lefty idealogues have injected into their communities by your patronising hand-wringing all-criminal-scum-are-victims-of-Thatch mentality.

GQ: "prejudical hatred of a large swathe of the population."

What garbage. These scum are a tiny minority who have been given privilege to terrorise the large swathe of the population that you refer to. Thanks to the treacherous policy makers who think just like you. That will soon end however. As Michael says, sometime next year NuLab will be indeed terminated with extreme prejudice and that will indeed be a happy day for the vast majority of the law abiding tenant population.

ILAG