Rayner: “We have a massive housing shortage so we’re building 1.5m homes to house 3.4m people” Phillips (Sky News): “But 2.5m of those will be immigrants won’t they?”

26 comments

1. They’ll literally say anything.

2. Every time something like this is said it fuels reform.

   Labour need to be more prepared for these inevitable questions.

3. Is this really the best Labour have to offer as MP’s?

4. Admittedly it’s easy to judge this when sitting at home, alone, relaxed, with a cup of coffee in one hand.

   But she probably should’ve said that they can’t fix all the nation’s problems with one policy, that we need to build homes, and the issue with who gets to live in them/concerns over immigration can a be a problem for next week.

   Otherwise you end up throwing up your hands and doing nothing of substance on these particular issues, like the prior government did for over a decade.

5. We don’t have a housing shortage at all – we have a population surplus

6. Let’s be honest, they will do fuck all about immigration, as they don’t want to upset the voters.

   They think throwing money at housing will solve the problem, and clearly won’t. It’s simple supply and demand.

7. Labour: the party of failing upwards.

   I’m not sure there’s any I think is competent and qualified for their post. Maybe Streeting, if I was forced to choose one, the rest are woefully out of their depth.

8. I saw a loaf of bread in the supermarket which reminded me of Angela Rayner.

   Then I realised I had misread it and it said “Thick Cut”

9. > “We have a housing crisis”

   > “Well the government’s own numbers say that over 5 out of every 7 of these new houses will need to be occupied by the immigrants you’re planning to take in”

   > “… we have plenty of houses”

   That’s literally how the exchange went. We aren’t just led by liars, but by some of the thickest, most inept liars you’ve ever seen in your life.

   How on earth is this woman the deputy PM?

   This is also a reminder that no matter what they say about immigration, however “strong” they try to sound – their own numbers in the budget tell the truth, and they are still planning to import millions more people.

10. Building them on land that we used to grow crops on? When we live on an island that has cut itself off?

11. The housing crisis only gets solved after a prolonged period of building more houses than we welcome in new people. This scramble to build houses essentially means very little while we’re still taking in between 500K and 1M new people every year. People would be far more welcoming of this news if labour actually made moves to *drastically* decrease immigration. At this point, most people would welcome a total freeze on all new arrivals outside of highly skilled workers who have jobs lined up in sectors where we have significant shortages.

    Another problem is the quality of houses being built. Poorly insulated, cardboard new build estates on the outskirts of existing towns where there are no public services, and where those towns existing public services are already saturated. Then charging £300K a pop for a terraced shitbox that nobody can afford.

    Literally most problems with modern Britain can be traced back to a single issue. That issue is mass immigration. It has to stop.

12. Isn’t this just saying we need to build more houses but we have enough facilities for holding asylum seekers?

    I mean if labour is setting deportation records you hope those numbers will go down and with events in Syria winding up a lot of people will be going home

13. 🤡 we are so fucked.

14. We have a hotel shortage. We need to build more 4* hotels

15. Meanwhile there’s something like a million empty houses lying around that could be used. But that’s not as easy as building on green belt

16. There is no necessary contradiction. The housing crisis can necessitate certain types of housing being built and other parts of the currently underused housing stock – huge volume of empty properties etc – can be freed up and described as there being “plenty of housing”. It is a lackluster media performance but it isn’t the “gotcha” that the rightards seem to think it is.

17. I supported Labour’s policy of building more houses. I thought they were just going to build millions of new houses which will make houses more affordable due to basic economic supply and demand.

    But after listening to the interview it seems they just want to build certain types of affordable housing for certain people, that seems to over complicate the solution.

    You don’t necessary need to build just affordable housing. If you build an expensive 5 bed detached house the chain will move up the ladder freeing up an affordable starter home at the bottom.

18. I mean, for starters, understanding that net migration is the key figure, which this 2.5M doesn’t represent, would be a start. Fell right into the bear trap.

19. Then all political parties need to be truthful. We cannot build houses at X rate because of issue X and Y and Z.

    I had briefly thought of what if the UK invested in industry and endorsed creation of shipping container homes / modular homes / prefabricated homes. Changed planning regulations and rules.

    Then went flat out on home creation (which can vary by size). As a stopgap measure with the view to reuse and recycle the homes at end of life and gradually phase them out with normal homes. So your gradually replacing your stopgap housing with regular homes.

    Your looking at a process that would take 10-15 years to complete maybe 20 years.

    It’s not a perfect solution but it’s better than what we have.

    The issue is the political will isn’t there to try something bold and innovative; both parties keep working on incremental policy-making

20. Stop me if I am being too logical here, but these 3.4 million souls looking for housing aren’t all single loaners requiring a single, 1 bed house all to themselves are they? This number (counting both british and immigrants) will include married couples, familes etc.

    How many houses do you actually need to provide a home for 3.4 million people then? I’d make a guess of around 1.5 mil 2-3 bed houses.

21. It seems that the mainstream media is actually plugging Reform like a celebrity on a chat show … If you look at who the owners are of the Telegraph, Daily mail and the Sun it makes perfect sense. These are the men really in charge of the UK indoctrinating the mass into forming opinions that suit their agenda. They are at every turn trying to disparage the Labour Party who have only been in power for not even half a year! All the scandals caused by the previous government is all forgotten. I didn’t vote for labour and I’m not a labour voter but it seems that the media has an awful lot of scrutiny for a new government with quite frankly an impossible task thanks to the unbelievable negligence, nepotism and corruption of the predecessors. Immigration skyrocketed under BJ, whilst claiming brexit would bring back control !

22. There’s a difference between building social housing and housing. Building up social housing stock that will be excluded from right to buy is not the same as just adding to housing stock. People won’t live in them forever, and will bring down house prices by reducing demand, and so force developers to build more to maintain profits. Right now they just sit on land until they can maximise value from it.

    She says they are being earmarked for people on waiting lists, veterans, and people fleeing domestic violence. Waiting lists are years long, so saying a large portion of these will go to newly arrived immigrants is unlikely. And we do have a lot of housing, and it is being built elsewhere by other people – this is extra social housing they are building.

    This isn’t a gotcha. She’s not thick as so many have said, people just respond badly to working class politicians with northern accents.

23. Climate migration is already happening and sorting climate change should be on the reform agenda so we can keep britain british.

24. lul

25. Urge… to … vote… rightwing… rising…

26. Close 👏 the 👏 border 👏.

    1 million people were let in last year.

    You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that mass immigration is putting incredible strain on infrastructure, public services, and the economy.

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