question for bulls and bears

Degenerate

WhiteThierry wrote: »

One thing ive noticed whilst lurking on here is that the champions of HPI tend to lean to the right/tories. Also the champions of HPC tend to lean to the left/Labour.

My question is why, after bearing this in mind?

1990's HP -14% in a mainly Conservative era
2000's HP +60-70% in a Labour era

I know my opening line is a generalisation. But surely if you're after HPI you should vote lab, if you're after HPC you should vote Tory.

Your entire premise is wrong, many crash-loving bears on here have been cursing this Labour government and praying for the salvation of a Tory government.

[Deleted User]

StevieJ wrote: »

Not sure that there is much difference between the Blair Labour party and the Tories Although I would be very worried
about the damage this new bunch of bungling Tories could do after the election (just a feeling).

Like you, it's more 'just feelings' with me.

I know she wasn't popular but I liked Maggie Thatcher and trusted her to run the country. But I accept that she was hard. I couldn't abide Neil Kinnock - I can't imagine what mess he'd have got the country into.

But Tony Blair - well, I could relate to him. He wasn't your typical socialist hard-man. He *seemed* to continue with a lot of Conservative ideas and managed to de-polarise the country.

There hasn't been a single Conservative prime minister that I've had any faith in since Margaret Thatcher. Too many of them seem like spoilt little public school boys that haven't lived in the real world.

Of course, this is all just perception. I casually pick up bits and pieces in the news and don't really look into things in any depth.

Which is why I'm interested in the thoughts of those that do follow things more closely - people from both sides.

abaxas

Degenerate wrote: »

Your entire premise is wrong, many crash-loving bears on here have been cursing this Labour government and praying for the salvation of a Tory government.

No they resent paying for something they are not allowed to own.

Why should a individual who cant afford something bail out someone who owns it, but also cant afford it.

It's some kind of insane anti Robin Hood. Steal from the poor to the rich...



* if the are any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes I simply cant be bothered to check or fix.

StevieJ

Deleted_User wrote: »

There hasn't been a single Conservative prime minister that I've had any faith in since Margaret Thatcher. Too many of them seem like spoilt little public school boys that haven't lived in the real world.

I think we have only had one Tory prime minister since Thatcher and he doesn't fit the profile you described, in fact Major left state school with 3 'O' levels

StevieJ

Degenerate wrote: »

Your entire premise is wrong, many crash-loving bears on here have been cursing this Labour government and praying for the salvation of a Tory government.

Yes the opening post confused me a little as well, I can only think of Carol who fits the description the bear side.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

Not sure that there is much difference between the Blair Labour party and the Tories Although I would be very worried
about the damage this new bunch of bungling Tories could do after the election (just a feeling).

Like her or loathe her, one of Lady Thatcher's great strengths as Opposition leader and then in her early years as PM was to say something along the lines of ...Labour are wrong and what they are doing is wrong and the Conservative Party can't go on moving further to the Left to accomodate what Labour are doing. We need to stand up for what we believe in and not just concede that an increasingly left wing Labour hold the centre ground of British politics.

I fear that Cameron's great mistake is to accept what has happened over the past 13 years as a fait accompli and take most of what New Labour has done in that time as policy that cannot be overturned. If the country wants New Labour, why would they vote Tory?

What the Governments have done over the past 13 years is increasingly being seen by the British people as a failure from what I see from afar at least. The Tories have a chance to fight the next election on their own terms - smaller Government, less bureaucracy, less Europe (I don't agree with all of these things but it's what people want from a Tory Government I think) - but seem to want to fight it as New Labour Lite.

dopester

Radiantsoul wrote: »

I think the Tories are more ideologically linked to the benefits of home ownership and have offer policies such as MIRAS and right-to-buy deliberately to encourage home ownership.

Whereas I think that Labour places less store in the benefits of homeownership. The fact is the dominant economic ideology over the last few years has been to control consumer prices, but not asset prices. There was not really, in my opinion, a strong reason to engineer a soft landing of housing prices. I am pretty sure that either party would have allowed house prices to soar.

For me Labour's attitude is entirely summed up by the position of Yvette Cooper, interviewed by Andrew Neil on 22/09/2008 (YouTube link): (digging herself in deeper to her conflicted position from repeated questioning by Andrew Neil in response to 'Isn't UK household debt the highest in the world.')

And actually I think that's a good thing that people want to be home owners and should be able to be home owners and you shouldn't punish people for that and somehow a bad thing if people want to become home owners.

This isn't the first time I've seen Labour's YC champion and applaud FTBs into home-ownership..... totally ignoring the ever rising costs/borrowing burden required to do so.

She also slags off the way other countries where renting is more of a mindset... making out that is why individual debt levels and mortgage burdens in those countries aren't so cripplingly high, as it so rightly is over here because she doesn't mind FTBs buying at whatever price.

Then making no connection between her/Labour's championing of FTBs owning their home and crazy lending/debt-burdens of people in the UK - and the broken banks. She is the obsessed one with home ownership.... regardless if it is wrong for some people. Especially with the deadly debt levels. Go on Yvette then... now banks are broken, can't have your debt-crippled home owners who believe in 'no-more boom and bust' losing their homes, or the fake value, so more Labour mortgage rescues and repossession stop schemes ect.

Yes... bad value also includes your £100K Northern Terraces in Oldham which some have been Labour infected to now think are fair value.. despite them being about £25K/£35K in 1998. Insane.

I'm not against Conservatives having allowed RTB at a discount, under Thatcher, at that time in history. For me it should have offered people a stake in society, which strengthens society, and helps being about input for other businesses. Their own home, can maybe to be passed on to children... and some gentle HPI in line with conditions of the economy balances out. However under Labour's raging HPI... it's turned many such owners into speculator monsters who MEW and take advantage of the huge increases in property values.

kabayiri

I accept that HPI will occur, in a free market economy. This would lead me to the political right I guess.

I don't think that asset bubbles are always a healthy thing, because they can build on the negative traits of human behaviour. To counter a housing bubble I believe the state should help support a healthy rental market, with surplus capacity in those areas under strain. This would lean me towards the political left I suspect.

Oh hell, I've just worked out I'm about to fall over.

Radiantsoul

dopester wrote: »

Then making no connection between her/Labour's championing of FTBs owning their home and crazy lending/debt-burdens of people in the UK - and the broken banks. She is the obsessed one with home ownership.... regardless if it is wrong for some people. Especially with the deadly debt levels. Go on Yvette then... now banks are broken, can't have your debt-crippled home owners who believe in 'no-more boom and bust' losing their homes, or the fake value, so more Labour mortgage rescues and repossession stop schemes ect.

I am not sure that government policies encouraged the rise in debt though. MIRAS ended under New Labour, which was probably the largest distortion to the property market. Interest rates came down, but this was a result of lower price inflation and I am pretty sure inflation adjusted interest rates are not so low. Perhaps capital gains tax could have been introduced on private property. Perhaps alternative investments could have been give advantageous tax treatement.

However it seems to me that the rise in house prices was probably something that occured in spite of the government and not because of it. I guess no-one is really aware of exactly why.

carolt

StevieJ wrote: »

Yes the opening post confused me a little as well, I can only think of Carol who fits the description the bear side.

Hardly.

I'm a very long way off thinking the Tories are the solution.

I do think New Labour have lost the plot - but the the path I'd prefer to follow veers firmly to the left not the right of the current Labour govt.

Which leaves me voting...what? Green? Lib Dem?

Not decided yet.

Of course, you may be right, Stevie, in your implicit assumption that Cameron is indeed to the left of the current Labour govt.