Forums Forums National News Allotments Sell-Off

The current Tory Government are to allow Councils to self off public allotments, this despite:-

Massive waiting lists for allotments.
Green policies.
Re-wilding policies.
Open space policies.
Common sense.

Fortunately most allotment sites are on land that is unsuitable for building on, that's partly how they came about. However in recent years it isn't unheard of that building on unsuitable ground still goes ahead and problems occur later.

SOURCE

Typo, DD,?

Always a good chance these days but I can't spot one.

OK, so this Tory government are far worse than the previous one.

Same, highly focussed on passing money up the trough system. Even capitalist America is waking up to the fact that extreme wealth inequality destroys a country. The only way for a country to be successful is to distribute wealth, otherwise you are just making a few individuals successful which are a tiny minority of a country.

The biggest con out is knocking houses down and building new ones. You buy a new house and you have immediately given 50% of that price away, you have a mortgage and over the lifetime of the mortgage you give away far more than the remaining 50% of the property, you pay insurance which is one of the most lucrative businesses out there.

In the mean time there are numerous distraction policies like allowing a high crime rate, attacking foreign countries, throwing personal insults around instead of discussing political policy, promoting celebrities as people that really important in this world, allowing rampant lies in the media (corporate and personal), faking disgust etc etc.

And in the mean time allowing blatant bribery and corruption, as a GP put it recently, saying he isn't allowed to receive a pen off a company rep yet politicians in the health sector receive gifts of hundreds of thousands of pounds from those same companies https://privatisation.everydoctor.o...-big-pharma-and-us-healthcare-lobbyists/.

The Utopia you seek doesn't exist and never will.

It seems to me this government are hell bent on stopping food production, whether it be on farms or allotments.

I think they think the food in the supermarkets must grow in there.

I'm not after Utopia, just a fairer society than the one we have. Its funny how people get arrested almost immediately for merely standing peacefully in roads belonging to the "gentry" yet you can have gangs causing all sorts of chaos and crime in other roads and nothing is done for months or years.

Acceptance of the gentry system based on wealth is what has kept this country back.

Acceptance of crime is just as bad, the majority of crime is linked to drugs and yet the drugs market could easily be virtually wiped out to a sensible level, this would not suit the gentry nor the police so instead they have a cozy little agreement.

The latest is talking about increasing National Insurance rates (to a potential 50%) while also extending the state pension age. If they need more money change national insurance to be taxed on all income instead of leaving a massive loophole for the rich. The more they can afford, the less they are taxed has been a policy far too long.

Every trial done on Universal Basic Income has shown it to be a success, Governments keep doing these trials and get the same results but everybody knows it will never be implemented because it goes against the gentry system than has been imprinted in everybody's heads.

You only have to look at the electricity farce to realise how the rules work:- lets have nuclear because it is cheap electricity, lets have solar because it is cheap electricity, lets have wind energy because it is cheap electricity. All of those statements are true, they are much cheaper sources of electricity but instead of providing cheap electricity, they are sanctioned to keep the electricity the same high price but create massive profits to the rich instead. For an extra nail in the coffin they make small businesses pay even more for their electricity.

There has always been the haves and have nots and there isn't a country in the world that doesn't apply. Even in the trade union movement of which I was a member for many, many years, pay differentials were kept between tradesmen, semi skilled and unskilled. So, how does the Universal basic income work, there will always be someone who think their job is more responsible than another and want renumerated accordingly.

Cheaper electricity, do away with nut zero and stop thinking we can save the planet.

UBI in its pure form pays the same basic living wage to everybody regardless of anything. If you don't want to be eating beans on toast every day in a 8 X 6 room then you work to improve your living standard (slight exaggeration, it should provide enough money to provide adequate living conditions for everybody).

While everybody guesses loads of people would retire rather than work (based on the disinformation about the number of benefit scroungers), the trials always show that is not true, having a secure safety net improves peoples motivation to try to improve their standard of living.

Not sure about that, the incentive to work is being uncomfortable not doing so. If you're comfortable not doing so, there's no incentive to work.

Every trial has shown it not to be a significant problem, everybody has aspiration it is fear that suppresses it. Stress and uncertainty causes people to make irrational decisions, this removes some aspects of that from people's lives.

Where it could go wrong is drug pushers taking advantage to destroy society even more but it would be immoral to use that as a reason for not letting the majority benefit.

Personally I would do it differently, although in many ways it is exactly the same thing its a step too far for most people's indoctrinated minds. I would have free basic housing and free basic food allowance but give a much smaller UBI to freely manage their own utilities and other living costs.

Everybody has a right to safe accommodation, medical treatment, food and care when they need it. Without those things we are not a humane society.

Only if you do your bit and contribute to society by working and paying your way. If your health doesn't permit you to contribute, of course the humane action is to look after those.
Too many freebies is hardly a motivation to find work.

Every trial has shown that is not a problem, its a sound bite that has been blown out of proportion.

After these trials has anyone adopted it yet?

Generally not, no Government has had the bottle, they keep repeating trials hoping they eventually fail to prove their own biases. Almost every Government regularly looks at it, this has been going on since at least the 16th century under different names and formats.

There are some localised areas where forms of UBI exist, from first glance it is usually in order to stop the population totally collapsing in inhospitable areas of strategic importance and low skill workforce. I haven't checked out the detail of the known areas

UBI solves a lot of problems but everybody is programmed to believe loads of people will sit on their laurels and belief overpowers evidence. It is very similar to the number of people that think there are a lot of benefit cheats around or loads of illegal immigrants when the stats show there aren't but the belief (and maybe desire) says otherwise, not helped by the main stream media stirring up animosity wherever possible.

At the last minute before one UK trial they halved the amount of UBI in order to undermine the trial which would then become a ludicrous waste of time and money, I can't remember if it went ahead but would have been pointless, I wrote something about it on WikiWirral around about the time. A safety net is no good if it is not capable of taking the full weight.

Its interesting that despite numerous trials having taken place in the UK, history has been rewritten and contemporary trials say they are the first or second trials in the UK.

Some trials have been pseudo-simulated whereby real people take part in the exercise and make decisions based on an imaginary UBI income and system. It is very difficult to run a time-limited trial of UBI as it makes no sense, many participants would be planning ahead for after the end of UBI rather than making decisions based on everlasting UBI.

One weird contradiction was Thatcher, who successfully turned public opinion against benefit claimants making them scum of the earth (in conjunction with Regan who was doing the same thing the other side of the pond) and yet Thatcher was also in favour of a basic income but could not get past the inertia within her own party.

UBI is considered a neo-liberal policy by many right wing people and is considered utopian by many on the left, this sounds back-to-front but it does somewhat concur with the previous paragraph and one of the later ones

There are problems with UBI, in its simplest but unworkable form. Wages/income would be decreased by the amount of UBI but then people would be working full time for literally pennies. This is brought about because of the current state subsidies for employers (in-work benefits) which are a poor comprise created as a means of bypassing international agreements on state subsidies.

In a practical version of UBI the cost savings of UBI should be taken into account so wages/income aren't reduced by the full amount of UBI and working would produce a significant living standard increase. Also children's UBI would be at a reduced rate, breaking the "universal" word. Income and living standards are not a linear relationship, increasing your income by 25% is a substantial increase in living standard, so earning 25% of UBI as an additional income from full time work when on UBI is a major step up for many lower paid people even though its monetary value looks small for full time employment. Eg £20k UBI with £5k full time salary. £25k is a significant increase in living standard compared to £20k basic UBI, that is the difference of comfortably owning a decent car or not. As a couple those figures for working would be the difference between a £180k house (terraced with no off street parking, small garden or yard) and a £225k house (semi with off street parking and a decent garden).

The tax system would have to considerably change under UBI, personal tax may have to be eliminated and replaced with higher focus on commercial tax, this has a knock on effect of increasing savings which will be used as direct or indirect investments.

Most non-disabled benefits would be eliminated, state pension would be eliminated and there would be huge savings in the associated administration costs ... at the cost of public sector jobs but the private sectors would grow from previously mentioned investment money. This may be why it is considered neo-liberal by some. Sick/maternity pay would probably remain the same as the current system?

It may never happen, the seeds of doubt are sown too deep and too many powerful control freaks don't like the workforce being given more ability to control their own destiny. However if enough discussion happens, you never know, there is support from unlikely places. If one significant country adopts it, it could avalanche very quickly, I would like the UK to be that world leader.

*By "wages/income" I generally mean wages plus all benefits