DEAR PRIME MINISTER,YOU MUST KNOW HOW EASY IT WOULD ACTUALLY BE TO SOLVE THE HOUSING CRISIS, SO WHY DONT YOU?
"Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions… Possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral - just like the possession of slaves."- Leo Tolstoy
If you are serious about helping the people, Introduce a Land Value Tax.
Firstly;"Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of pretext except that they had the power to do so." – George Orwell. "Except for the few surviving commons, the high roads, the lands of the National Trust, a certain number of parks, and the sea shore below high-tide mark, every square inch of England is `owned' by a few thousand families. These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms. It is desirable that people should own their own dwelling houses, and it is probably desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he can actually farm." – George Orwell.Who are the biggest benefactors of this artificial land shortage?
a) Primarily Large Landowners. The ludicrously small figure of 0.65% of the UK population own 68.3% of the land, many are aristocratic families dating back many hundreds of years. Despite propaganda stating that the British aristocracy is poverty stricken and exists no more, they have managed to hang on to their lucrative acres very well, and in many cases expand their empires. The root of this situation came about from the Norman conquest. The Normans gave land to people who were favorable to them. In short, many of these families were traitors to their own kind conspiring with invaders. The Saxons had a very different approach to land, its ownership and usage. However, the Feudal system imposed by the Normans meant 100% of taxes came from the land, and not from any income tax. The land owners, mainly Lords, moved taxes away from land to increase their wealth, moving taxation onto individuals. Later, the enclosures of common lands and the Highland croft clearances completed the land rout with these people greedily stealing land. The situation has never been rectified. The UK still has this landowning aristocratic legacy, which still, despite propaganda stating otherwise, has a large effect and influence on the British population. Large landowners are part of the British establishment and do everything in their power to keep the status quo. The late Enoch Powel described the British establishment as “the power that need not speak its name”.
A very astute description.Most of these landowners produce little making their vast profits by taking rent. When the media reports that times are hard for farmers, they omit the word “tenant”.
It should be “tenant farmers”.
When times are bad the landowner always gets his rent, or takes the farm back, paying no taxes on it when idle, and leaves it until times are better. To justify their monopolies in land ownership, large landowners state they are only custodians of the land and only they can maintain the land properly. “Maintaining the land properly” is rather open and vague, if they ever do such a thing of course.
Their excuse to grab land intially, in the English enclosures and Highland Clearances, was to improve and mainatin land. If these people are only custodians and looking after the land for our benefit, then why aren’t the public allowed on uncultivated land? These custodians fence off all their lands and only allow access to the population when forced to by law. Their claims clearly do not hold water.
The British prime minister in 1909 stated about British landowners hoarding land and their so-called maintenance and productivity of land:
"Millions of acres ... more stripped and sterile than they were, and providing a living for fewer people than they did 1000 years ago - acres which abroad would either be clad in profitable trees or be brought ... to a higher state of cultivation."- Lloyd GeorgeThe UK has never had a revolution, which tend to strip away the vested interests of the entrenched landowning rich. No political party has had the stomach to face up to large landowners, who are a legacy of our totally unjust past. Landed families infiltrate the top brass of the military. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were two planned military coups against the reforming Wilson government as many in the British establishment thought, amongst other things, he would nationalise land. However, there was full employment, a sound economy and the population were not discontent, only aspects of the British Establishment were. After all, in 1945 Atlee promised land reform, but ran out of time, so Wilson, a major part of the Atlee government, should carry out the promise when the Labour party returned to power, which he mysteriously never did.
Tony Blair ejected from the House of Lords 66 hereditary peers, who between them owned the equivalent of 4.5 average sized English counties. The Royal family controls approximate the size of one average sized English county. The Duke of Argyle owns vast tracts of Scotland. Historically landowners have been a problem; the Irish famine was a direct result of large landowners. The problem is still with us and in many respects even greater. With large landowners being omnipresent in the Palace of Westminster, land reform would always be difficult if near impossible. Tony Blair ejecting hereditary peers is the first step in land reform, as one barrier has been partially dismantled.
What creates this artificial land shortage?
The 1947 Town and Country Planning act, introduced by a “Labour” government, who promised land nationalisation during the 1945 general election, herds the population into small isolated highly dense pockets of land in urban areas. Amazingly the Labour government allowed the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) to be involved in drafting the act. CPRE was formed by large landowners. They influenced the act to suit themselves. The naïve Labour administration at the time accepted their input. Over 90% of the population now live in urbanised areas, the second highest percentage in Europe, leaving the countryside virtually empty, because of this draconian act. This crams near 55 million of the population into around 7% of the land, which is only 4.2 million acres out of a UK total of 60 million acres. 60 million people own just 6% of the land.
The pitiful lack of land for new housing is not helped by the 30 million acres that have ‘disappeared’. [The land Registry still does not know who owns up to 50% of the UK]- Peter Snow (referring to the Land Registry & Planning)
The act prevents us from building on the countryside, even though much of it is being paid to remain idle by taxpayers money. A countryside that has lost its population at an alarming rate over the past 30 years. The population of the UK are forced into tight urban pockets paying extortionate prices for land, and subsequently houses. Their taxes are used to reinforce this bizarre situation by paying to:Keep land unused to maintain an artificial land shortage inflating house prices.House large sections of the population unnecessarily in public funded housing. Overwhelmingly control where the population lives. This adds insult to injury. A contemptuous slap in the face.The Town & Country Planning act is in effect an act to control the population, rather than ensure adequate agricultural land is available, protect areas of natural beauty or promote first class habitation. The latter it certainly does not do.
INTRODUCE A LAND VALUE TAX AS FIRST PROPOSED BY WINSTON CHURCHILL, AND LLOYD GEORGE IN HIS PEOPLES BUDGET OF 1909
Worth also noting that Churchill was an advocate of LVT. Of course the Tories always omit that from any of their references to Churchill.
'Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived."http://www.landvaluetax.org/current-affairs-comment/winston-churchill-said-it-all-better-then-we-can.html
SINCERELY DAVID *****
Please copy and paste and send to the PM if you agree:
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