Transit Camps for the Poor & Needy

That's how Austin Mitchell MP has described proposals by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).

CIH are suggesting that new tenants of social housing should be offered fixed-term contracts and moved into private housing if their circumstances improve.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7720074.stm

Nearly 4 million people are waiting to be housed, but only 170,000 properties are becoming available each year.

This is of course yet another example of chickens coming home to roost. Selling-off the stock of council houses, which started under Thatcher, was always going to return with a vengeance. It was a policy which New Labour has done nothing to change, despite the protestations of Labour MP Austin Mitchell. He's right to say that a fundamental tenet of council housing was that it was secure.

Contrast this plan for council house tenants, who would be rewarded for working hard to improve their lot by being kicked out of their homes, with the bonuses and 'golden parachutes' of the bailed-out banking bosses, a thank-you for taking our cash and playing the casinos.