Letters: Stop assuming everyone with a house is somehow rich and without problems

A reader explains how hard he has worked for years to own his house and resents the assumption he can afford a land tax on top.

House in order

I have just read your article where someone suggests a land tax on houses. Do you really think homeowners are living the life of riley?

Forty-three years ago, I was living in a bedsit with my wife and our baby son on a council waiting list and then blessed with a housing association flat. After 10 happy years living there, our circumstances changed through hard work, and we managed to scrape enough money together to buy a small house on the open market. 

We eventually sold that and moved to our current house, living here for the last 22 years. It’s been a long journey with hard work and sacrifices, and a few years ago our mortgage was paid. 

We are both retired with small work pensions, and we both scrape by. No luxurious holidays or eating out, but we are happy to go out for walks, cook fresh food and are blessed with the security of a roof over our heads. Always been Labour supporters and trade unionists through our working lives. Sadly, the narrative among the media and political class is that people like us with pensions and small properties should have extra taxes and hardships imposed on us.

You have no idea what we have been through, so perhaps leave us alone to enjoy some time to stand down and just be. We have paid our dues over the years and always given to homeless people and charities.

Perhaps more attention should be paid to the billions spent on war and the military industrial complex, along with corporations not paying taxes.

Stop assuming everyone with a house is somehow rich and without problems.

Ian

Time for a republic?

After reading your article, and with St George’s Day approaching, may I throw a little controversial spanner in the works and suggest we try the UK as a republic? I know we’ve done it before, and it didn’t take, but I am sure we have learned from those past mistakes. In a society where many of us are asked to pay more for less, the monarchy seems less relevant.

Philip Simons

Missed Connexions

The dismantling of [government support service] Connexions in 2012 due to Coalition cuts left a massive gap in careers advice for young people. Schools and local authorities have struggled to fill that role.

If the government truly wants to support young people into work, reinstating a national Connexions-style service would be far more constructive than cutting benefits.

Connexions got me my first Apprenticeship, helped me with my CV, Connexions also offered one-to-one support by telephone, SMS, and instant messaging

Also supported with housing, health, relationships, drugs and finance!

Emma Lou, Facebook

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Blame game

People are accusing each other of ‘scamming the welfare system’ BUT…

1. MPs still get their wage increase.

2. MPs and other government officials have MASSIVE expense bills.

3. MPs decide who pays tax.

4. MPs have credit cards for office equipment and travel expenses, NOT for designer shoes and lavish meals.

5. MPs decided to punish the elderly for being a drain on our communities.

6. MPs decided that the disabled are also a drain on our communities.

7. MPs decided that the elite get richer, and poor folk have been told to take a wage cut, pay higher taxes and put up with it because everyone has to do the same. Apart from, of course, the super-rich, government officials and MPs.

They’re blaming the wrong people!

Stephen Crabbe, Facebook

Football focus

I’ve often thought that a lot of the levers that middle-class people used to oppress the working class have been removed, so their weapons of oppression now are tedious rules. That said…

Steward’s eye: Football needs a lot of tedious rules and this stems from the fact that football stadiums are a unique set of circumstances. Within a football stadium, you’ll have thousands of people in a very small area, and you have to make sure that everyone is accommodated. Inclusion is the name of the game. At the same time, you have to be mindful of the fact that it’s a crowd and get everyone to work with each other. It may seem silly, but things would fall apart pretty quickly if we weren’t there.

It’s often said that it’s a working-class sport and that it grew out of the working classes, but this simply isn’t true. The modern games were founded by Masons and people who went to private schools like Eton. Indeed one would have been hard pushed to find a team in the first days that would have included the working classes. It was only with the rise of clubs up north that it became associated with the working classes.

These days, football does seem to be a middle-class thing, but it ultimately rests on the culture around it that you as an individual wish to engage in. There’s the working-class side of it and the middle-class side of it. I don’t have fun when I’m with the middle-class component of it. I like the grassroots side of football, but that’s another thing.

Benjamin Barton, Facebook

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