House and home

Recently the topic of affordable housing has been discussed in the media.  With a chronic shortage of this, and with any help that is given going (rightly, I suppose) to those worst off, it's those people who are in the middle who are going to struggle most to get on the property ladder.  By in the middle I don't necessarily mean 'middle class.'  I mean those people who earn enough to live on, but not enough to save up and buy.  This will probably include people we think of as middle class today; office workers, even nurses and teachers. 

So it seems that in the future more people will have to rent, either alone or with friends.  Even buying with friends might become an option.  I found it interesting that the recent BBC series Sherlock showed two young men sharing a flat, for financial reasons, something that people often don't quite 'get.'  Of course, there was a recurring theme that half the people they met would assume that they were sharing because they were a couple. I've encountered that myself, even when I've been sharing with 2 or 3 people!  

 But is it necessarily a bad thing that fewer people will be homeowners?  Perhaps not, in many countries it's more usual to rent than to buy.  But as commentators have said, certain things would need to change if renting were to become more popular.  As I've written about before, tenants are often at a disadvantage compared to homeowners.  It's unlikely many landlords will feel the need to invest in extra energy efficiency measures like insulation or solar pannels as they will derive little personal benefit.  The same goes for decoration and non-essential repairs and upgrades.  It's understandable, especially if you have long term tenants and haven't got to attract new ones.  Perhaps landlords need to be given some incentive to do this, perhaps tenants need to be able to badger their landlords more.  Perhaps if people are living in rented property for longer, rather than seeing it as temporary, they need to have more opportunity to do work (decoration, refurbishment) themselves.  To be able to feel settled, to make a place their own.

To make living in rented property attractive, these aren't the only changes that would need to take place.  Society often seems to take it for granted that 'proper' adults own their own home, and share it only with a partner.  Why?  As a result, most official paperwork and benefits are based around each household being occupied only as a single unit.  Council tax, for example, is based on the incomes of two adults living in each house leading to some downright unfair effects (but that's a whole other rant).  Even government research surveys find it hard to cope with two or more non-related, non-partners, sharing a home, and surely that will become more normal.  Officialdom needs to recognise that the two adult (and two income) per household model does not reflect all households.

There is a danger that if property becomes concentrated in the hands of a rich minority then theose worse off will have little choice but to accept lower standards.  That's something to be careful about.  And there's the pension situation: many people living on pensions today can afford to do so (just) because they own their own homes and don't have to pay rent.  If fewer pensioners in the future own their own homes, and have to pay rent from ever-decreasing pensions, that's something that needs to be addressed- sooner rather than later.  But will it- or any of these concerns?  Or is too much like joined-up, long term thinking for governments which seem to only deal with the immediate problem?

Balancing the personal and the corporate

The conflict (if I can call it that) between individual spirituality and organise religion has always interested me.  I know people who've struggled to find a church where they feel at home because they can't find one which fits in with their personal ideas.

Personal spirituality is much more fashionable at the moment than organised religion.  Particularly when people say that religion should be private, or restricted to the private, hidden parts of a practitioner's life; never spoken about with non-believers, never obvious or overpowering.  Although I don't agree that faith should be something we hide (that doesn't really fit with Jesus' commands to be 'witnesses,' does it?) I can understand the attraction of the personal vs organised debate.  In a way, evangelical revivals of the few hundred years even going back to the Reformations, have brought this about by concentrating on the believer's individual relationship with God rather than the church's.  Protestant doctrines playing up the role of the believer in searching out God for him or her self, through Bible reading and personal prayer, took over from Medieval ideas of finding salvation through the church and priesthood.  Spiritual movements, both Christian and from some other faiths, and cultural shifts, have only increased this tendancy to individualism over the last few decades. 

Organised religion, by contrast, is often today seen as foolish and deluded, as out of date, stuck in the past.  Sometimes, sadly, the institutions of the church or the behaviour of other branches of the church can seem more of a help than a hindrance to Christ's Great Commission.  We know this isn't how things should be, but changing this situation is fraught with difficulty and heartbreak for many.  But Paul's letters show us the importance the early followes of Jesus put on the church, the community of believers meeting to worship and to support one another, so we try to make it work, in our church, in our town, getting little recognition or encouragement. 

The paradox is that much research (and 'evangelism training') shows that it is very often the community of believers, the church, which helps bring people to a place where they find God.  Not always, of course; some people find God on their own, but many more come to church services or groups, go on Alpha or a similar course, or through friends willing to talk about and live out their faith. So although people will often say 'I'm fine with Jesus, it's the church I can't stand,' often it's the church which helps them understand what Jesus really meant. 

So how does the church respond?  How do we balance the importance of a personal relationship with Christ with our responsibilities and relationship to the body of Christ, the church?  I'm not sure I know.  As usual I suppose we just have to do our best and listen to God's guidance.  And trust he knows what he's doing.

A question

Amidst all the furore over the debate on women bishops, could I ask a question, hoping that someone out there with more knowledge than I can answer it?  Does anyone have any figures showing what percentage of the Church of England is opposed to women bishops?  Not just synod, or clergy, but the feeling among actual church members?  Because I think that's something which has got lost. 

Most of the comment we've heard has come from bishops and clergy, or at most lay members of synod.  And I think as a result the proportion of people opposed has been overstated.  I'd be interested to hear more of the 'view from the pew'.  The internet and blogs are good for that, but most recently have understandably been commenting on the views expressed in synod.  What do ordinary people think?  Has anyone even asked? 

So if anyone can point me towards information, please let me know.

A Modest Proposal

You know, I've had an idea.  I think it could solve a lot of the country's problems, from crime to welfare to NHS spending.  It's building on the fine traditions of this country, and should really go a long way towards 'fixing' the broken society we live in (or should that be big society? Or big broken society, or broken big society?  Something like that, anyway.).

I suggest that every young person between the ages of eighteen and twenty five is locked up.  Possibly even sixteen to thirty.  This is the age group that is responsible for so many of the country's problems- most crime: violence, drunkenness and disorderliness, damage to property, drug misuse, muggings, theft, is committed by this age group.  It's also the age group who are now finding it almost impossible to get jobs, as they don't have the experience to compete with adults with five or ten years work experience in the the current market, when many jobs have dozens of applicants.  If every person in this age group were to be imprisoned, not only would crime figures fall dramatically (and along with them the cost of funding the criminal justice system) but also cut spending on the dole (Jobseekers' Allowance) and on other welfare benefits, such as housing.  It would reduce the pressure on the job market, and help the country out of depression by providing full employment for everyone else.

Speaking of housing, with the young out of the housing market, the country's housing shortage would be solved.  And by keeping young men and women separate except under close supervision pregnancies outside a stable family environment could be entirely eliminated, which would help again with welfare payments and also with overpopulation.  And without students, student debt would also be abolished, and universities could be used for their proper purpose- researched focused on industry profits, and as conference venues.  A whole generation could be freed from growing up with the burden of debt, teaching them a valuable lesson about managing finances. 

Some will argue that the whole scheme would be probibitively expensive, but I believe it could even be profit making.  The young can be made to contribute to the society which has cared for them by doing good old-fashioned work, growing food which could then be sold, for example.  They could serve (without pay, obviously) in a variety of armed forces roles, and work in the community to aid local projects.  Housing and feed costs need be minimal, as only basic buildings will be needed for such young, robust people.  Frugal living and exercise will help improve their overall health- saving future NHS spending.


Some may say this is a bit too radical for the country to take at the moment.  Very well, start by just locking up the men, and see the vast difference it makes to the country.  Keep the women out of it for the moment.  Perhaps exceptions could be made for the children of the well-off, or the highly intelligent.  And one last benefit to the country- it would allow for strict training of decent sports teams, away from all distractions or scandals.  The young could help build the Olympic venues, keeping down labour costs so the games might actually be under budget.  One day, we might even win the football World Cup! 



Ok, I hope you noticed that was something of a joke.  I'm not sure I can go so far as to claim it's satire.  The title of this post comes from Jonathan Swift's 1729 essay advocating solving Irish famine problems by eating babies, which should give you a clue.  I'm not actually advocating this- far from it- and I have no proof for any of the 'facts' stated above.  They're entirely based on prejudice.  But really, from the things some politicians and media outlets say, you can't help but think that young people can't do anything right, that they are to blame for all of society's problems, and society would be better off without them. It wouldn't take many alterations (replace imprisonment with 'National Service' or 'national volunteer squad/ training scheme') before someone will say that the arguments above have something in them.  In fact, the first hints have already been dropped by Cameron et al for a national volunteer scheme, which while having certain benefits in giving young people skills and experiences, is still probably at heart a way of keeping them off the dole and out of the unemployment statistics.  Instead of treating them as lazy ingnorants or mere statistics, why can't we value the young, and perhaps trust them a bit more?

And no, I don't have a cure-all idea for solving that or any of the country's problems.  I don't think there is one.  Sorry to disappoint you.