Here's my personal story, some may find interesting- I was finishing my masters in the UK and split up with my ex girlfriend, this meant I had to get a job quickly to sustain myself because I had nowhere to live and no money. I visited some different groups of friends who were kind enough to let me stay for a few days on their couch but I couldn't risk outstaying my welcome.
At the same time the Occupy protests were happening in St Pauls. I secured a short term contract in an investment bank, and stayed in a tent with the protestors while saving for a deposit to rent a room. I had to put on my suit and dash away from the camp in the morning before I was spotted, I'd then change before coming back in the evening. I washed in the local swimming pools.
Looking back on it, it was nuts that I was able to finish my thesis. So yeah, rents are high, you need to know someone to make it in London.
good for you! I always found it unfair that left wing protestors are allowed to do illegal things, like camp in parks. They complain about privilege, while they themselves are afforded privileges that ordinary people (like you) don't have.
I really don't understand several things about this story.
1. Why move to London if you're an unskilled worker? Are opportunities elsewhere even bleaker?
2. London has a huge problem with absentee property owners because London real estate is currently a hot investment. It's a feedback loop. The more rapidly London properties appreciate, the more absentee owners there will be, and the more demand will rise. Why haven't bylaws been passed to curb this? For example, why aren't residences that are unoccupied by their owner for a significant portion of the year taxed at much higher rates? It would probably be necessary to offer a renter rebate to compensate for increased rents, but this would discourage the practice of leaving residences vacant. If this doesn't actually drive prices down, at least it would prevent them from continuing to rise.
3. Why aren't the barge-lords being treated like slum-lords when the barges they run are overcrowded, full of mould, etc.? I understand it's hard to legally enforce a tenant-landlord relationship when it's all under the table, but there must be something the police can do to hassle these guys until they improve conditions.
4. Where are the government programs, volunteers, etc. that you usually see in other cities building low-cost housing? e.g. Why isn't anyone building legal barges with decent living conditions to compete with the barge-lords?
1) You were born there. Your spouse lives there. Etc
2)!london is not monolithic; it has several local councils all with differing rules. They'd all need to agree and coordinate. I don't know why it isn't done better.
3) people living in slums ether don't know their rights; or how to enforce those rights. Sometimes their own legal status is dubious and they risk deportation. Even if they do know their rights, and how to enforce their right, and they can get the regulator to take action, and they're totally legal and above board, they may just end up without a home.
Housing in the UK is weird and broken and at the low end there are some strong weirdnesses built into the system.
4: People are building legal barges. You can pay £90k and buy one off the shelf[1]. The difficulty is finding somewhere to moor it: London's waterside is as much in demand as land in the city. You'll have to pay the riparian owner for this. Tidal Thames prices are very high; historically the canals have been lower, but they're largely full up.
In addition, the waterway authorities don't really want more 'liveaboards'; they place a lot of demands on waterway infrastructure yet it's difficult to charge them much (for legislative reasons, and getting legislation changed is a slow and unlikely process).
> 1. Why move to London if you're an unskilled worker? Are opportunities elsewhere even bleaker?
Sometimes. Sometimes it's the best option available. Sometimes people move to London believing they have a job and it turns out badly. And sometimes people make bad decisions.
> Why haven't bylaws been passed to curb this? For example, why aren't residences that are unoccupied by their owner for a significant portion of the year taxed at much higher rates?
There's little popular support for it, particularly under a conservative government - historically the party of property owners. The English are very protective of their houses and would fight anything that was perceived to reduce the rights of homeowners.
> 3. Why aren't the barge-lords being treated like slum-lords when the barges they run are overcrowded, full of mould, etc.? I understand it's hard to legally enforce a tenant-landlord relationship when it's all under the table, but there must be something the police can do to hassle these guys until they improve conditions.
Hence the eviction in the article. I think it's legally harder to treat something (legally) mobile as a home. And any law to tighten the regulation of mobile homes would probably be opposed by guardian-reading liberals as oppression of the traveller community.
> 4. Where are the government programs, volunteers, etc. that you usually see in other cities building low-cost housing?
Some exist. But their popularity is limited - voters are happy to see their house prices increasing, and no-one wants to live next to people who, as the article admits, party loudly late into the night, use a lot of drugs, and live in unsanitary conditions.
Somewhat related to point #2, this article (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950...) was shared here a while back that discusses a way in which vacant property is being used to house people at a discount, but it deals more with office buildings. Perhaps they could implement something similar for absentee property.
1. I lived in a car in London for 6 months. It was pretty fine. McDonalds was my washroom.
2. These boats are rare. I mean really rare. This is not the norm. The boats and the moorings are damn expensive so this doesn't make sense even for the landlords. Even crappy moorings cost.
3. You can go to the council and get a bedsit if you're in this situation. Literally the next day. Might have to share with a crackhead for a week but that's life.
4. There are plenty of other places to go in the UK where the salary/housing cost ratio isn't crazy. I lived in Nottingham for a bit and had a 5 bedroom detached house in a nice bit for £500/month. £230/month will get you a 2 bed flat better than this.
> These boats are rare. I mean really rare. This is not the norm. The boats and the moorings are damn expensive so this doesn't make sense even for the landlords. Even crappy moorings cost.
My Girlfriend lives on a house boat in battersea and its beautiful and bigger than most flats we have looked at. The moorings are crazy expensive though hers is a bout 650 per month of sunk cost - then obviously plus the cost of the boat and cost of oil to heat it (no gas to central heat).
I feel sorry for this guy but as someone points out, there is council accommodation exactly for this reason (wage =/= rent).
I live on a boat and don't pay mooring fees. I'm a "continuous cruiser" which means I move my boat every two weeks to a new location. All of my fellow boating friends do the same and most of us have pretty nice boats. And yes, the boats described in the story are very rare.
I can't say I've seen anything like the ones described in the story in my time on the water, with the exception of one 25ft fibreglass that was pretty much abandoned save the odd homeless person who used to sneak on it.
I'm actually amazed that the Canal and River Trust would even give a license for such a boat.
Most boaters I know have lovely boats and are incredibly proud of their homes.
The boats in this article are moored about 1/4 mile from where I am right now. This particular riverbank is owned by the council - it's essentially a strip of parkland. As far as I understand, mooring is free, but you're not supposed to stay more than a few days. Certainly not the years this small floating shanty town has been growing there. That's why the article mentioned that the council has been taking legal action to move these boats on.
Wow, the North is much cheaper than the Midlands and the South! My sister lives up North and housing is much cheaper than the Worcester area where I live.
A friend of mine (who is well known in the London tech community, and might pop up here) has lived on a house boat within spitting distance of London bridge, it's not a 'slum' but rather cheap, centralised accommodation.
I really don't understand why people are looking at the wrong problem the whole time. Housing is not a problem, transport is. Commuting from outside London costs more than 500 pounds. UK transport (trains, tube) got the worst price to quality ratio in the world. You can rent a whole house for 1000 outside London, but the cost of transport is equivalent to nice flat in London (plus painful commuting[1]). Many agencies won't let you a flat if you make less than 36k, but that's below average and way below median.
Any regulation or tax will we bypassed. Government should do the opposite, deregulate to reduce the cost of building new houses.
Startup idea: Cheap, sustainable and safe transport for London. Investors are reluctant to buy properties outside London, cause of poor liquidity, hence cheaper and faster transport would solve that problem. Elon! help!
[1] It's not only the time, but trains are so unreliable. 1mm of snow and everything stops. I can't image what would happen if there would be proper winter.
It's impractical to produce new transport routes without government powers (e.g. compulsory purchase). And demand rapidly absorbs any new supply. e.g. Crossrail will bring new areas into commuting distance when it opens in 4 years - but house prices in those areas have already spiked up to match.
So for £230 per month in London, you get an unpleasant, unsafe, tiny, and marginal place to live.
Given that it's one of the most expensive cities in the world to live ("typical" 2BR apartments in nice areas are more like £400-600 per WEEK), I can't say I'm surprised.
The ways people are willing to trade off comfort to live in the center of things sometimes surprises me, but not that much.
You can get a 3-room house with garden and parking for less than £300 per week. I know because that's what I have; 10 minutes by motorbike to Old Street, or 40 minutes by public transport.
The wildcard is your qualification of "nice area". There's a very wide scale, and what would qualify as "nice" somewhere else will be a lot more expensive here. I've never felt physically in danger, though I have had motorcycles stolen.
I remember my friend moved to London a couple years ago. He said that tube tickets were taking up a large chunk of his income and barely had enough to pay for rent in his flat. He eventually moved back home to NZ 6 months later cause he was sick of being broke.
I know a few other of my friends have moved to London with great success, but I think the trick is to lock-in a well paying job before you move over there.
No..the trick is to find some sort of network of friends before you go.
I went to London with about 500 pounds of cash and no concrete job, on a one-way ticket.
For a start - renting is out - you have to find someone who is willing to lend a couch. Living the highlife is out - no pubs for you. Your only status is to (1) clean the flat for the people who let you stay there and (2) look for jobs. This should be a full-time occupation until you find a job - any job. Your ability to continue to sponge off someone else is tied to how they feel when they get home tired and find you sitting on their couch, coupled with how quickly you can find employment and vacate said couch.
Locking in a well-paying job before you get there is like saying you should find a good looking girlfriend before you start university. It's not going to happen unless you are very established somewhere already and get a transfer, or are internet famous for something. Or you are going to get sold a pup and end up locked into a crappy job in a crappy part of town.
I found my first job within 10 days of landing, worked that for a couple of months, asked to be paid after 1 week and then spent the entire cash amount on a deposit for a short-term one-room flat, which took all my money so I ate pot-noodles for a week. Stayed there for 4 weeks until I amassed enough cash for a proper flat. By that time I found two other people who wanted to share and the three of us rented a decent place for a decent price. After that it was better jobs, more fun and a great time. I passed it on by helping other people out with time on the couch, coupled with strict rules on what goes on.
In case you think that was a fluke, I repeated the same thing about 4 years later, only this time it took 8 weeks to find a job because the economy was more strained. I had (marginally) more savings this time but it was more tense.
The hack for housing in London is finding a borough with low council taxes with the lowest transport zone you can afford, and if you have an established job, one which offers a short commute. And don't blow all your weeks surplus on a big friday night out including an expensive cab ride home.
The only trick is being hungry for success in a city that doesn't seem to want to give it to you unless you fight for it.
Don't know much about other stuff but from what I experienced in England (London area especially), the public transport is unbelievably expensive. I went there for 2 weeks and maybe the biggest part of my expenses was spent on trains/buses/the tube. Especially trains.
This from the point of view of a tourist, though. I guess English citizens have some preferences/reductions?
I can't imagine why so many people making under 2000 GBP after tax move to London. Especially younger people with no roots anywhere, why on Earth moving here under these conditions?
Part of the problem is the influx of recent young immigrants from other EU countries where they have it even worse and they seem to default to London when many cities in the UK would be much better at least as a starting point.
Because why would you move a thousand miles just to live in Nottingham? World cities such as London have something to offer to everyone, not just professionals with established careers and this is exactly what makes London special and exciting. I remember at the beginning of my career I was living in London on a £25K salary for two years and I was just fine. Don't be elitist.
I was in a similar situation but I was not living in a houseboat slum but was technically squatting for a short while. The reasons people do this is varied - they could be saving up to be able to pay down a deposit to live (and trying to find a decent place here is bad enough!), they could prefer to live 'in' London instead of outside due to the cost of transport and also more opportunities in London and so on. There are other factors as well - for example you had to have a NI and have a bank account to get paid, and to get an NI/bank account you needed a place to stay.
The thing here is that unless you are in the upper-middle income bracket then you are locked in the London rat race. London is good to live in for a few years but in terms of a lifetime here, it's not good or you find 'strategies' in evading council tax.
> Comfortable rooms appear on flatshare websites from time to time, at typical rents of £600 a month in areas such as Richmond.
Even if you are working at minimum wage* you are earning over £900 after tax. Assuming you spend £100 a month to get to work, that's still £200 to spend on food, the pub, whatever else takes your fancy. You could also save more by not trying to live in one of the most expensive areas of London. When I was there (ok nearly two years ago now), I was paying under £400 a month for a rather comfortable (and warm) house share in South Wimbledon. It was zone 3, and took 25 minutes to get to work in central London.
*A 'living wage' of £8.80 has been getting popular over the last few years, I'll use the UK minimum of £6.31 though. Also, yes I understand not everyone can get a full-time job, but bear with me for sake of argument.
"That middle bit there, as you put it; "....it's depressing how easily you get used to the slugs, the dampness, the cold and the filth".......that's what is counted on. This separation of living standards, it's manufactured. Yes there are some random elements mixed in, but by and large everything is engineered to be this way. Government, banks, housing moguls....they know they have people over a barrell, they know people just have to get on.
They also know that if they keep it this way for long enough, not so awful as to make people revolt but awful enough to serve their greed, people will get used to it. It will become expected. Then people will feel lucky for having the things that should be standard for everyone, not one person excluded.
You are indeed lucky, good Sir, but you feel that way because of what you've been put through. They made the System, and the System has made you this way because that serves a purpose. That purpose is to keep the rich rich, the poor poor and to make everyone believe that that's precisely the way it should be."
That sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory.
How about: someone has a boat, and the government lets them moor cheaply in central London. They make money renting it, out of natural human self interest.
I think the thing this article fails to mention is the perfectly adequate Public Transport system there is around London. I would think the number of jobs where you physically have to live in London would be very small. For everyone else there is Tube/Train/Bus/Coaches.
Complaining you have no money because you chose to live in Central London is like complaining you've got no money for food because you spent all your salary on payments on a Ferrari.
This seems a rather odd article, there are many useful sites (particularly in London) that enable you to search for properties in a much smarter way these days, check out the tools on www.findproperly.com , find spare rooms on www.spareroom.com or even act as a property caretaker on www.guardiansoflondon.com
Or even get a tube/train map and not live in London. Plenty of people commute to work and seem to cope OK. Living in London is no more a right than owning a Rolls Royce.
The cheapest on the first page is £300/month - about 25% more than the £230/month mentioned in the article. The second cheapest is £360/month - almost 50% more. If you're trying to demonstrate that there are alternative cheap places to rent, I'd say you failed.
And all of those rentals will require at least a month's rent up front, which is the main point that the article was addressing - starting out renting is beyond the pocket of many people.
I stayed in a hostel for £5 each day (3-4 years ago) while in London. Wouldn't that plus a locked container somewhere be cheaper? Surely beats a car or a boat
5 quid sounds unbelievably cheap for a hostel in London. Unless they have some special rule for not letting people stay longer than few days, they would be swamped.
While they're in parliament, MPs can expense mortgage payments on a second home.
This isn't entirely unreasonable - it means you can be elected even if you're not already rich enough to own a second home in London as well as your home in your constituency.
But it does have the unfortunate side-effect that rising London house prices put cash in MPs pockets.
What we need is to do away with expense payments and instead give MPs a per diem, based on today's expenses and rising with CPI. That way, keeping a lid on housing, transport and council tax prices will be in their interests.
MPs get paid over £60,000 per year. If they cannot live on that they need to think about the nurses, teachers, etc who get paid less.
They don't need a second house in London. They do need London accommodation. It is bizarre that millionaire MPs get paid public money in the form of expenses on top of their wages to buy a second home in London.
[+] [-] drcross|12 years ago|reply
At the same time the Occupy protests were happening in St Pauls. I secured a short term contract in an investment bank, and stayed in a tent with the protestors while saving for a deposit to rent a room. I had to put on my suit and dash away from the camp in the morning before I was spotted, I'd then change before coming back in the evening. I washed in the local swimming pools.
Looking back on it, it was nuts that I was able to finish my thesis. So yeah, rents are high, you need to know someone to make it in London.
[+] [-] theorique|12 years ago|reply
Just to clarify: you mean they wouldn't have liked it if they had known that you were a banker?
[+] [-] yetanotherphd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beloch|12 years ago|reply
1. Why move to London if you're an unskilled worker? Are opportunities elsewhere even bleaker?
2. London has a huge problem with absentee property owners because London real estate is currently a hot investment. It's a feedback loop. The more rapidly London properties appreciate, the more absentee owners there will be, and the more demand will rise. Why haven't bylaws been passed to curb this? For example, why aren't residences that are unoccupied by their owner for a significant portion of the year taxed at much higher rates? It would probably be necessary to offer a renter rebate to compensate for increased rents, but this would discourage the practice of leaving residences vacant. If this doesn't actually drive prices down, at least it would prevent them from continuing to rise.
3. Why aren't the barge-lords being treated like slum-lords when the barges they run are overcrowded, full of mould, etc.? I understand it's hard to legally enforce a tenant-landlord relationship when it's all under the table, but there must be something the police can do to hassle these guys until they improve conditions.
4. Where are the government programs, volunteers, etc. that you usually see in other cities building low-cost housing? e.g. Why isn't anyone building legal barges with decent living conditions to compete with the barge-lords?
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
2)!london is not monolithic; it has several local councils all with differing rules. They'd all need to agree and coordinate. I don't know why it isn't done better.
3) people living in slums ether don't know their rights; or how to enforce those rights. Sometimes their own legal status is dubious and they risk deportation. Even if they do know their rights, and how to enforce their right, and they can get the regulator to take action, and they're totally legal and above board, they may just end up without a home.
Housing in the UK is weird and broken and at the low end there are some strong weirdnesses built into the system.
[+] [-] rodgerd|12 years ago|reply
There were reasonably robust Adverse Possession laws in the UK, but they've been <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_England_and_Wales#... wound back</a> in favour of, surprise, surprise, absentee landlords.
Returning to the situation where owners who simply hoard vacant properties risk losing it to squatters would likely remedy much of the problem.
[+] [-] Doctor_Fegg|12 years ago|reply
In addition, the waterway authorities don't really want more 'liveaboards'; they place a lot of demands on waterway infrastructure yet it's difficult to charge them much (for legislative reasons, and getting legislation changed is a slow and unlikely process).
[1] http://www.newandusedboat.co.uk/new-boats-widebeam.php
[+] [-] lmm|12 years ago|reply
Sometimes. Sometimes it's the best option available. Sometimes people move to London believing they have a job and it turns out badly. And sometimes people make bad decisions.
> Why haven't bylaws been passed to curb this? For example, why aren't residences that are unoccupied by their owner for a significant portion of the year taxed at much higher rates?
There's little popular support for it, particularly under a conservative government - historically the party of property owners. The English are very protective of their houses and would fight anything that was perceived to reduce the rights of homeowners.
> 3. Why aren't the barge-lords being treated like slum-lords when the barges they run are overcrowded, full of mould, etc.? I understand it's hard to legally enforce a tenant-landlord relationship when it's all under the table, but there must be something the police can do to hassle these guys until they improve conditions.
Hence the eviction in the article. I think it's legally harder to treat something (legally) mobile as a home. And any law to tighten the regulation of mobile homes would probably be opposed by guardian-reading liberals as oppression of the traveller community.
> 4. Where are the government programs, volunteers, etc. that you usually see in other cities building low-cost housing?
Some exist. But their popularity is limited - voters are happy to see their house prices increasing, and no-one wants to live next to people who, as the article admits, party loudly late into the night, use a lot of drugs, and live in unsanitary conditions.
[+] [-] hmsimha|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bloat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d0|12 years ago|reply
1. I lived in a car in London for 6 months. It was pretty fine. McDonalds was my washroom.
2. These boats are rare. I mean really rare. This is not the norm. The boats and the moorings are damn expensive so this doesn't make sense even for the landlords. Even crappy moorings cost.
3. You can go to the council and get a bedsit if you're in this situation. Literally the next day. Might have to share with a crackhead for a week but that's life.
4. There are plenty of other places to go in the UK where the salary/housing cost ratio isn't crazy. I lived in Nottingham for a bit and had a 5 bedroom detached house in a nice bit for £500/month. £230/month will get you a 2 bed flat better than this.
This is a sob story - nothing more.
[+] [-] cones688|12 years ago|reply
My Girlfriend lives on a house boat in battersea and its beautiful and bigger than most flats we have looked at. The moorings are crazy expensive though hers is a bout 650 per month of sunk cost - then obviously plus the cost of the boat and cost of oil to heat it (no gas to central heat).
I feel sorry for this guy but as someone points out, there is council accommodation exactly for this reason (wage =/= rent).
[+] [-] welly|12 years ago|reply
I can't say I've seen anything like the ones described in the story in my time on the water, with the exception of one 25ft fibreglass that was pretty much abandoned save the odd homeless person who used to sneak on it.
I'm actually amazed that the Canal and River Trust would even give a license for such a boat.
Most boaters I know have lovely boats and are incredibly proud of their homes.
[+] [-] mhandley|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theknown99|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 72deluxe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukasm|12 years ago|reply
Any regulation or tax will we bypassed. Government should do the opposite, deregulate to reduce the cost of building new houses.
Startup idea: Cheap, sustainable and safe transport for London. Investors are reluctant to buy properties outside London, cause of poor liquidity, hence cheaper and faster transport would solve that problem. Elon! help!
[1] It's not only the time, but trains are so unreliable. 1mm of snow and everything stops. I can't image what would happen if there would be proper winter.
[+] [-] eru|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theorique|12 years ago|reply
Given that it's one of the most expensive cities in the world to live ("typical" 2BR apartments in nice areas are more like £400-600 per WEEK), I can't say I'm surprised.
The ways people are willing to trade off comfort to live in the center of things sometimes surprises me, but not that much.
[+] [-] barrkel|12 years ago|reply
The wildcard is your qualification of "nice area". There's a very wide scale, and what would qualify as "nice" somewhere else will be a lot more expensive here. I've never felt physically in danger, though I have had motorcycles stolen.
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
Except it's not that surprising because we see people renting out garden sheds and lock-up garages as housing.
[+] [-] ansimionescu|12 years ago|reply
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/london-houseb...
[+] [-] Matsta|12 years ago|reply
I know a few other of my friends have moved to London with great success, but I think the trick is to lock-in a well paying job before you move over there.
[+] [-] brc|12 years ago|reply
I went to London with about 500 pounds of cash and no concrete job, on a one-way ticket.
For a start - renting is out - you have to find someone who is willing to lend a couch. Living the highlife is out - no pubs for you. Your only status is to (1) clean the flat for the people who let you stay there and (2) look for jobs. This should be a full-time occupation until you find a job - any job. Your ability to continue to sponge off someone else is tied to how they feel when they get home tired and find you sitting on their couch, coupled with how quickly you can find employment and vacate said couch.
Locking in a well-paying job before you get there is like saying you should find a good looking girlfriend before you start university. It's not going to happen unless you are very established somewhere already and get a transfer, or are internet famous for something. Or you are going to get sold a pup and end up locked into a crappy job in a crappy part of town.
I found my first job within 10 days of landing, worked that for a couple of months, asked to be paid after 1 week and then spent the entire cash amount on a deposit for a short-term one-room flat, which took all my money so I ate pot-noodles for a week. Stayed there for 4 weeks until I amassed enough cash for a proper flat. By that time I found two other people who wanted to share and the three of us rented a decent place for a decent price. After that it was better jobs, more fun and a great time. I passed it on by helping other people out with time on the couch, coupled with strict rules on what goes on.
In case you think that was a fluke, I repeated the same thing about 4 years later, only this time it took 8 weeks to find a job because the economy was more strained. I had (marginally) more savings this time but it was more tense.
The hack for housing in London is finding a borough with low council taxes with the lowest transport zone you can afford, and if you have an established job, one which offers a short commute. And don't blow all your weeks surplus on a big friday night out including an expensive cab ride home.
The only trick is being hungry for success in a city that doesn't seem to want to give it to you unless you fight for it.
[+] [-] xbadxapple|12 years ago|reply
This from the point of view of a tourist, though. I guess English citizens have some preferences/reductions?
[+] [-] muyuu|12 years ago|reply
Part of the problem is the influx of recent young immigrants from other EU countries where they have it even worse and they seem to default to London when many cities in the UK would be much better at least as a starting point.
[+] [-] DrJokepu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falsedan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digita88|12 years ago|reply
The thing here is that unless you are in the upper-middle income bracket then you are locked in the London rat race. London is good to live in for a few years but in terms of a lifetime here, it's not good or you find 'strategies' in evading council tax.
[+] [-] lucaspiller|12 years ago|reply
Even if you are working at minimum wage* you are earning over £900 after tax. Assuming you spend £100 a month to get to work, that's still £200 to spend on food, the pub, whatever else takes your fancy. You could also save more by not trying to live in one of the most expensive areas of London. When I was there (ok nearly two years ago now), I was paying under £400 a month for a rather comfortable (and warm) house share in South Wimbledon. It was zone 3, and took 25 minutes to get to work in central London.
*A 'living wage' of £8.80 has been getting popular over the last few years, I'll use the UK minimum of £6.31 though. Also, yes I understand not everyone can get a full-time job, but bear with me for sake of argument.
[+] [-] nitrogen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] personlurking|12 years ago|reply
"That middle bit there, as you put it; "....it's depressing how easily you get used to the slugs, the dampness, the cold and the filth".......that's what is counted on. This separation of living standards, it's manufactured. Yes there are some random elements mixed in, but by and large everything is engineered to be this way. Government, banks, housing moguls....they know they have people over a barrell, they know people just have to get on. They also know that if they keep it this way for long enough, not so awful as to make people revolt but awful enough to serve their greed, people will get used to it. It will become expected. Then people will feel lucky for having the things that should be standard for everyone, not one person excluded. You are indeed lucky, good Sir, but you feel that way because of what you've been put through. They made the System, and the System has made you this way because that serves a purpose. That purpose is to keep the rich rich, the poor poor and to make everyone believe that that's precisely the way it should be."
[+] [-] nailer|12 years ago|reply
How about: someone has a boat, and the government lets them moor cheaply in central London. They make money renting it, out of natural human self interest.
[+] [-] asgard1024|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|12 years ago|reply
Complaining you have no money because you chose to live in Central London is like complaining you've got no money for food because you spent all your salary on payments on a Ferrari.
[+] [-] mcdowall|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackgavigan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|12 years ago|reply
And all of those rentals will require at least a month's rent up front, which is the main point that the article was addressing - starting out renting is beyond the pocket of many people.
[+] [-] shultays|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sireat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|12 years ago|reply
Scary the future isn't brighter. Or maybe the interlopes are getting darker ?
[+] [-] c4newskate|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kimonos|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelt|12 years ago|reply
This isn't entirely unreasonable - it means you can be elected even if you're not already rich enough to own a second home in London as well as your home in your constituency.
But it does have the unfortunate side-effect that rising London house prices put cash in MPs pockets.
What we need is to do away with expense payments and instead give MPs a per diem, based on today's expenses and rising with CPI. That way, keeping a lid on housing, transport and council tax prices will be in their interests.
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
They don't need a second house in London. They do need London accommodation. It is bizarre that millionaire MPs get paid public money in the form of expenses on top of their wages to buy a second home in London.