Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Osborne's Help to Buy scheme is hare-brained and poorly thought out.

Aside from the fact that Osborne has totally missed the point that the banks will only start to lend again once all the 'Banker Bashing' has stopped and the banks have fully repaired their balance sheets, the scheme itself is flawed insofar as it will invariably fail to help the people who need it the most and, instead, it will mainly help the people who either don't need it or who shouldn't benefit from it, such as second home owners and overseas investors.

If he's hell bent on bring the scheme in, it should at the very least be made exclusively available to UK tax payers whose income falls below a certain threshold.

It is not the low incomes that need to be helped in that way as they will have trouble paying the mortgage. That will lead to defaulting. The scheme is aimed at those who don't have the deposit but can repay the loan. The scheme is not a social benefit scheme, but to help the housing and construction sectors.

I stand by my assertion.

Bank lending criteria has changed over recent years, and has reverted to more historic lending multiples, so the chances of banks lending to people without sufficient income to repay is currently next to zero, regardless of whether or not they're taking advantage of Help to Buy. An income cap would direct the scheme more towards first time buyers (which is the category to whom I was actually referring as 'needing it most') and away from the overseas buyers and second home owners who most definitely shouldn't be allowed to benefit from the scheme imo.

If the chancellor wanted to help the housebuilders, a starting point would be to offer some halfway-decent incentives to the builders themselves which might then inspire them to build with a view to meeting perceived real demand as opposed to artificial demand created from schemes like Help to Buy. As it stands, the property market is already over-inflated by, imo, about 30% and risks being pumped up even further by Help to Buy.

Hilary,

Stop it.

I am beginning to agree with you.

It is a little like the sub-prime mortgage fiasco all over again.

I had KGN for a while and glad I dump them before they collapsed.

(It was a crazy but lucky "investment" or "gamble" at the time.)

----

The cash being used for the scheme could be ploughed into social housing which would have been directly into the economy and been a general stimulation with the housing remaining in public ownership. Far simpler and more effective.

--------------------

It is all in a cartoon.

.

Looking at what King actually said about the 'help to buy' scheme you can see that there was no criticism of the scheme. He just said it should not be permanent. That would be unlikely as the decision to extend it beyond 3 years is going to be made by the Bank of England. It seems a good idea, but the details are important regarding who get the deal.

Hays,

Is Cameron still in touch with you?

He is said to out of touch with the previous tory faithful, by the the party faithful.

But it was good to hear Hunt say that tory party was still united, or was that another con.

Bring back John Major.

----------

What a disaster.

Oh, almost forgot I heard the cons. are now blaming the media, including the BBC for their problems.

(Of course, they also blame the previous government of three years ago. I wonder what they blame their parents for. I know what I would blame them for.)

Also, blame Europe for not working hard enough and avoiding our financial services.

8-)

I have never been in touch with Cameron. The party does seem united. A lot of the disunity stuff is the media looking for a story. There are some differences of opinion, but not as big as are being made out. I must say that I am increasingly in favour of leaving the EU unless it is reformed. The latest nonsense over olive oil bottles in restaurants is yet another example of the EU trying to control every aspect of people's lives.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22579896

Flies in the ointment.

Should put the top on the tube.


--------------------

But it could be like putting horse meat in beef burgers to increase the profits.

It is clearly not about tampering as there is no attempt to put vinegar in tamper proof bottles. It is about vested interest in the olive oil business.

In the mail today - Tories are in a frenzy but soapbox Ed is caught with his pants down.

Without going on - many senior Labour figures are now convinced they are heading for defeat in 2015.


Many senior Labour figures are now convinced they’re heading for defeat in 2015.

They believe they can see the writing on the electoral wall for three reasons. First, the council results were much worse than anticipated. Labour predicted gains of well over 300 seats, and a percentage of vote-share pushing the mid-thirties.






http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2326817/Tories-frenzy--Soapbox-Ed-caught-pants-down.html

That's a very interesting article. If accurate, it spells doom for Labour.

The Comres poll the other day showed UKIP up to 19%. Labour dropped 3 points to 35 and Conservatives down 1 to 29%.

32% thought that Cameron would be the best Prime Minister, but only 24% thought Miliband would be best.

One statistic that shows up UKIP's problems is that even with 19% of the voters, they would not gain even one seat. The Libs have always had a decent number of seats with that percentage and even lower. It is one of the peculiarities of our voting system that having a good percentage on average doesn't get you seats. You need even better in specific constituencies. It is why the Libs have never made a breakthrough at any election.

My view Haystack is the Cons have had a protest vote against them and on the day that counts they will shine. My view only and many others as well . :-))

From the mail -

We’re going to get caught with our pants down,’ said one official. ‘We’ve been hammering the Tories over this flat-lining economy. Well, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be flat-lining much longer.’

.

Within Miliband’s circle, meanwhile, there is said to be a sense of paralysis and mounting crisis. ‘Madness’, was one description of the atmosphere in the Miliband camp in the wake of the recent intervention by Tony Blair, in which he criticised Labour’s drift into a ‘comfort zone’.


There was even thought given to an all-out assault on Blair and his New Labour legacy. In the end Miliband himself vetoed the plan.


But the bitterness that exists towards Blair among Miliband’s team goes to the heart of Labour’s problems.

From the moment he was elected leader, Miliband has been governed by one guiding principle: think what Tony Blair would have done, then do the opposite.

The point I'm making - day after day on here the Cons are run out and as you can see from above the Labour party is not a lot different. It does seem to go unnoticed from a certain party and no doubt it will carry on. :-))