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Don’t delay, minister: release council housing cash now
WHAT’S housing minister John Healey up to?
He has announced this week that he wants to hear the views of council tenants on whether receipts from Right to Buy sales of council properties should be held and spent by town halls. At present, they go into the national pot.
This will take time, at least two or three months.
Does that mean there is plenty of time before this can be acted on?
Surely he must know that there is only a short time to go before the next general election – and that any sensible government would want decisions of this sort to be taken now.
Later, it will be too late.
Or does he know this and is putting it on the back burner because it is not part of the government’s overall strategy to reduce the effects of the recession.
Keynesian solutions, historically, require a strong fiscal policy where job creation schemes are paramount. At present, criticism is building up in the United States over Obama’s weak infrastructural job creating policies. The same charge can be levelled at Gordon Brown.
And all this feeds into every government department, including John Healey’s.
As the Lib-Dems argue, a deluge of public money has been poured into the banks without tight control. Bonuses are still being paid. Bank loans to businesses continue to sputter. Banks are virtually owned by the public but it is not allowed any directors on the boards.
Too little, if any at all, has gone into job creation projects.
If money were spent now on the modernisation of council homes, it would, at least, boost employment in the borough. Why the delay?
Dubious practices
IT started with a small step. Only three GP practices in Camden Town, King’s Cross and Bloomsbury were set aside for privatisation last year.
Critics warned more take-overs were on the way but the authorities denied this was their strategy.
This week we report that private bids are being made for a huge practice serving 30,000 patients – the equivalent of seven or eight average-sized practices. By effectively promoting these changes, the health authorities are simply acting as filters for government policy.
Behind government rhetoric lies a determination to nibble away at the NHS and create a disproportionately large private sector.
The future of the NHS as a public health service is at risk.
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