I suppose that you could argue - in true Norman Tebbit style - that if George Freeman can't afford a £2000pcm mortgage, he could just move (and/or spend less on avocado toast)?
Yes, and we can also blame him for getting a variable-rate mortgage. One should always blame the victim. He clearly has poor financial sense, and why that is the problem of the people who manipulate the financial system is beyond me.
Underexplored in this story (not your piece which is about something else!) is that technically, what Freeman did initially was take a pay cut. Going from being a minister at around £118k to a backbencher at around £84k - a cut of around £34k.
And presumably the only reason to do so was so someone in the private sector could then come in and pay him a lot more than £34k to work for them while he is also supposed to be doing his full time job as an MP.
Agree that the real story is the incredible drag real estate is putting on Britain’s economy, yet people are so bored of talking about housing being unaffordable they just jump to the usual tribal attacks/justifications.
While I completely agree with you on the unaffordability of UK housing I think that the attacks on Freeman are completely justified. As I posted as a comment on his blog (possibly he has deleted it now) I earn in the same ballpark. We paid our mortgage off last year but at the time we were paying £2000 a month plus overpayments. As well as this we could save, pay into my pension, fund 2 kids through uni and have a pretty nice life (I am well aware of how privileged we are as a family). The difference is that he is, I believe, paying for his kids to go to private school. Tories are very fond of telling us to cut our cloth accordingly, so I think telling him the same, maybe his kids could go to same schools as everyone else's kids, is fine. Ditto the quips about cancelling Netflix, stopping eating avocado on toast etc. It's a good opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of the average Tory.
Unclear what exactly he wanted people to say in response - what was his objective? If the message is that 'politics is becoming a rich man's game' then you massively undercut that argument if your complaint is that you can no longer afford your £2000pcm mortgage...
On a more serious point, Tom, to what degree do you think that your role (broadly, watching everything Person X does and jumping on anything which is in anyway controversial, or can be made to appear controversial) is a net negative or positive for politics.
The reason I ask is that it appears to be a problem if politicians cannot think aloud and speak freely for fear of this being taken out of context. To be clear, I have not read Andrew Lansley's comments (for many obvious reasons) but he may (stress, may) have been making a wider and nuanced point about needing to consider things in the round. If increased economic growth can have some negative consequences such as increased demands on the health service we may need to think more carefully about how to split the proceeds of growth, and maybe not just assume "growth is good in all ways and all times".
Similarly, and to give perhaps a more obvious example, there appears to me a likely link between increases in the minimum wage and human trafficking/modern slavery. Is it a problem if politicians cannot write about this (or speak about it), without you (or someone like you) immediately 'spinning' that "X says Brits shouldn't get a pay rise", and ignoring the rest of the piece?
That wasn't my main role, it was a byproduct of part of my role: I had to monitor what Lansley said, as the policy officer covering health policy when he was shadow Health Secretary, to make sure we knew what Tory health policies were and what we could and couldn't reasonably say about them. I didn't expect most of what he said to be embarrassing, and it wasn't, but I maintained and added to a very large quotes file which we could draw on when responding to Tory policy announcements, tracking policy shifts and inconsistencies, etc. But if he said something silly, as in this case, then yes it was my job to notice and flag it.
I suppose that you could argue - in true Norman Tebbit style - that if George Freeman can't afford a £2000pcm mortgage, he could just move (and/or spend less on avocado toast)?
Yes, and we can also blame him for getting a variable-rate mortgage. One should always blame the victim. He clearly has poor financial sense, and why that is the problem of the people who manipulate the financial system is beyond me.
Underexplored in this story (not your piece which is about something else!) is that technically, what Freeman did initially was take a pay cut. Going from being a minister at around £118k to a backbencher at around £84k - a cut of around £34k.
And presumably the only reason to do so was so someone in the private sector could then come in and pay him a lot more than £34k to work for them while he is also supposed to be doing his full time job as an MP.
1. Buy a car
2. Eat a lobster
3. Become a race horse?
4. Profit!
Agree that the real story is the incredible drag real estate is putting on Britain’s economy, yet people are so bored of talking about housing being unaffordable they just jump to the usual tribal attacks/justifications.
While I completely agree with you on the unaffordability of UK housing I think that the attacks on Freeman are completely justified. As I posted as a comment on his blog (possibly he has deleted it now) I earn in the same ballpark. We paid our mortgage off last year but at the time we were paying £2000 a month plus overpayments. As well as this we could save, pay into my pension, fund 2 kids through uni and have a pretty nice life (I am well aware of how privileged we are as a family). The difference is that he is, I believe, paying for his kids to go to private school. Tories are very fond of telling us to cut our cloth accordingly, so I think telling him the same, maybe his kids could go to same schools as everyone else's kids, is fine. Ditto the quips about cancelling Netflix, stopping eating avocado on toast etc. It's a good opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of the average Tory.
This.
Unclear what exactly he wanted people to say in response - what was his objective? If the message is that 'politics is becoming a rich man's game' then you massively undercut that argument if your complaint is that you can no longer afford your £2000pcm mortgage...
On a more serious point, Tom, to what degree do you think that your role (broadly, watching everything Person X does and jumping on anything which is in anyway controversial, or can be made to appear controversial) is a net negative or positive for politics.
The reason I ask is that it appears to be a problem if politicians cannot think aloud and speak freely for fear of this being taken out of context. To be clear, I have not read Andrew Lansley's comments (for many obvious reasons) but he may (stress, may) have been making a wider and nuanced point about needing to consider things in the round. If increased economic growth can have some negative consequences such as increased demands on the health service we may need to think more carefully about how to split the proceeds of growth, and maybe not just assume "growth is good in all ways and all times".
Similarly, and to give perhaps a more obvious example, there appears to me a likely link between increases in the minimum wage and human trafficking/modern slavery. Is it a problem if politicians cannot write about this (or speak about it), without you (or someone like you) immediately 'spinning' that "X says Brits shouldn't get a pay rise", and ignoring the rest of the piece?
Would appreciate your thoughts on this.
That wasn't my main role, it was a byproduct of part of my role: I had to monitor what Lansley said, as the policy officer covering health policy when he was shadow Health Secretary, to make sure we knew what Tory health policies were and what we could and couldn't reasonably say about them. I didn't expect most of what he said to be embarrassing, and it wasn't, but I maintained and added to a very large quotes file which we could draw on when responding to Tory policy announcements, tracking policy shifts and inconsistencies, etc. But if he said something silly, as in this case, then yes it was my job to notice and flag it.