Like many others I was not close to Giles @nearlylegal.co.uk but he supported me and my family more than once, when he didn't need to, and I can't believe he's gone. hqnetwork.co.uk/news/farewel...

So weird seeing this again today. The government's own evaluation of Help To Buy in 2017 said more than half the people who took the handouts could have bought a home without it.

Government spending on housing is billions and billions more per year than it needs to be because losers like George Robertson never built social housing when he was in government.

BBC News leading all its bulletins on demands by former Government advisor Lord Robertson for more defence spending, without at any point mentioning his current paid senior role for US defence lobbyists

well I've scanned through the references cited in & funnily enough the 2015 SHOUT Report does not feature @sheltercharity.bsky.social - our report modelled the savings to #HMTreasury of building at #SocialRent which outweighed the rising costs of PRS #HousingBenefit www.almos.org.uk/wp-content/u...

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was @alisoninman.bsky.social @bushbell.bsky.social @tomemurtha.bsky.social @stevehilditch.bsky.social @simplicitly.bsky.social @lucyferman.bsky.social

“That the universal credit cut will affect new claimants says the quiet part out loud: anyone can become disabled or ill. And every time governments slash the safety net, we can’t know if it’ll be us, a loved one or stranger who will fall through it.” Today’s col www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In my speech on the need to challenge reform at the Northern Housing Festival I questioned how his right wing views influenced his time at HE.

In case anyone was wondering why so many homes in England are built to such low quality, this guy was head of govt department Homes England. No way does Farage not agree with his policy ideas.

As a member of a 'most vulnerable' household at the time, our main reaction to the buffoon Johnson and his lectern sycophants was to ignore him and stay.. more isolated.. than usual. The inability of mostly healthy people to give up a little bit of 'freedom' to protect others is my main memory.

It is striking how little media appetite or interest there has been for the Covid inquiry's conclusions

Government: we're very worried about the negative effect on young people of spending too much time indoors online. Police: if you go outdoors with your mates to celebrate spring and being off school for a couple of week you risk arrest and never getting a job.

In this article, @simplicitly.bsky.social issues a call to action for social housing residents who would like to be involved in the formation of a new national tenant body hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion... #ukhousing

Opinion: Don’t miss this chance to get involved in a new national tenant body for social housing << important from @simplicitly.bsky.social hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion...

Kicking the resolution of serious issues far into the future is not new, but why have the Ministry of Housing given social (and private) landlords another 10 years on top of the 8 years they've already had to make homes 'decent'?

In this article, @simplicitly.bsky.social contrasts the prescience of a 60s' sci-fi rock classic with the fortunes Decent Homes Standard. Honestly, he does. hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion... #ukhousing

Another promise delivered.

Hard Agree*

In his latest article for HQN, @simplicitly.bsky.social looks at self-regulation in the housing sector asks: will it work to build homes? hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion... #ukhousing

Southampton man "faintly miffed" at social landlords lobbying to omit decent flooring from decent homes. (me for @hqnmedia.bsky.social) hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion...

Ah, a world in which you stealth-cut child benefit and heavily subsidise pet ownership. The British people demand it

I am intending to make it to the end of my life without ever personally using AI tools.

Poverty is deepening. 🔎 Our #UKPoverty2026 report was launched this morning. People in very deep poverty now make up the biggest group of people in poverty, at 6.8 million people. This is unacceptable for the fifth richest country in the world, and it has consequences.

The inevitable outcome of the Camron/Clegg Osborne/Alexander project on poverty and productivity. Many of the policies that cause this are still being operated by our current government, too.

Like every MP who believes that 'claiming benefits' is easy or generous, Farage would not last two minutes down at the jobcentre. They assume everyone else is as corrupt and incompetent as they are.

anyway, I must get back to the long email my council landlord sent me about how most damp and mould is down to lifestyle, actually.

And well worth remembering, as Neil has, that a great deal of the 'regulation' isn't just about building safety, it's specifically about how people are treated, their health and indeed their safety from their landlords. A landscape that is not resolved yet and blatantly cannot rely on good actors.

It is bold of the Tories, which oversaw one of the darkest periods in social housing policy to come out swinging on, of all things, regulation of the sector. Disrespectful attitude towards private renters & RRA not surprising given the Tories torpedoed their own manifesto pledge to improve things.

Initially started to get annoyed at how wrong he is about all the detail of... everything, but what's the point? The long and short of it is he's prepared to see more people die for housebuilder profits.

Unless it actually happens.

**** christmas

@simplicitly.bsky.social's Social Housing Alphabetical Advent Calendar 2025 is now up to 'R' – which could stand for 'Read it now'. Here it is hqnetwork.co.uk/news/robs-so... #ukhousing Warning: the man's sheer enthusiasm for Christmas may overwhelm you

For some reason I have decided to make a Social Housing Advent Calendar on LinkedIn for the main tidbits from the year, and even more foolishly I've decided to do it in alphabetical order. Thankfully @hqnmedia.bsky.social are making a compendium of the daily entries, so i don't have to.

I don't generally watch daytime TV but channel-hopped between the phone-in shows yesterday. The Cameron-era avarice was in full swing from most callers, incandescent with rage that some children's families might be able to afford to feed them now.

The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.

All this means is that carers who used to qualify for carer's allowance - wrongly in the view of the government - won't get it any more. There won't be any overpayments, which is great, but all these carers now won't get any financial support at all.

More work needed on how many families won't get any more money because they'll still hit the overall household benefit cap.

Surprise (surprise).

I am technically on holiday but at first glance this report is so, so weird.

Inspired by Donald Trump, backed by Tommy Robinson, channelling the Nazis – here's Labour's new policy on migration https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/17/refugees-jewellery-asylum-home-office

Let's just get the Tories out, and then we can worry about actual policy down the line.

If you didn't know which party this guy was from, you would have to google it, because it's a pretty consistent policy across all parties to wrongfully blame sick and disabled people for their poverty.

Often wondered if it's just as frustrating a task as an employer as it is as a claimant to engage with an organisation that has predominantly been turned into a harsh gatekeeper for social security entitlements.

New today from DWP: Claims that just one in five employers have engaged with Jobcentre Plus. Actually, it's worse than that - the DWP employer survey says most of the contacts are about workplace pensions, apprenticeships (then not DWP), child support and disability issues, not JCP services.

Never mind shrugging aside nurse's advice, I have come across a totally unqualified "medical adviser" to a social landlord asserting they knew better than a *professor consultant* at a London teaching hospital specialising in tenant's rare illness.

Are the TSMs out yet?

Urgh, Sovereign. This is clearly Not Fixed. Tried to help a tenant last/this year with something almost exactly the same, they eventually just homeswapped because Sovereign thought they had fixed it, but they had not. An internal comms and systems problem that leaves tenants unhelped.

So important to tie all these issues together, and very neatly and carefully done by @hannahfearn.bsky.social. Some of these things have felt inevitable since the coalition's swingeing welfare cuts after 2010, and the solutions now require a real policy shift.

Isabel Oakeshott on behalf of Reform calling for Sharia law in Britain. No, I'm not even joking. That's literally what she's saying here.