Beware of Boris’ housing pledge

BoRIS Johnson’s plan to sell off housing association properties at a cut price is a similar ploy to Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme to buy working-class voters.

If history repeats itself, most of the properties will end up in the hands of private landlords. They will charge extortionate rents and allow properties to fall into the squalor that many people in rented accommodation have to endure.

At a time when young people are desperate for a place to live, if Johnson’s plans go ahead we will see a decline in affordable housing.

This ruse, like his pounds and ounces fiasco, is just another gimmick without substance. What next, a return to pounds, shillings and pence?

John Sedgwick, Tamworth, Staffs

Yet another hair brained scheme from Boris to sell off social housing to tenants when there is a huge shortage and long waiting lists. This plan has not been thought through properly.

How will tenants afford to pay a mortgage when they’re receiving housing benefit and would banks or building societies lend the money? How would the new owners afford to carry out improvements current landlords are obliged to undertake? The answer to getting hard-working people on the property ladder is to build more affordable housing and work with employers to increase salaries.

J Fellows, Blyth Northumberland

housing and affordable housing. When the Right to Buy scheme came in, the promise made was that new houses would be built to replace the stock sold.

As we all know, this didn’t happen, which has led to a rise in private rentals and high rents, and a rise in homelessness.

Instead of travelling the country putting cement on bricks, driving diggers and so on, the PM needs to find out more about the way the majority of us mere mortals have to struggle to survive.

Helen Rawles, Blandford, Dorset

I doubt you would get a mortgage if you’re on housing benefit and nobody would want to buy a house if they are living on the breadline. Bearing in mind, too, that the house would likely be in a poor state of repair thanks to council budget cuts due to austerity.

Do we really have dumb and dumber in charge? Answers on a postcard to No10 Downing Street.

Helena Williams Bowie, Swindon

The PM’s pathetic proposals to rehash Thatcher’s Right to Buy

scheme is no more than a PR stunt to claw back “Red Wall” voters.

With cash-strapped councils unable to build more homes and millions living on the breadline, our disgraced PM says buy your property. Tenants can’t even buy a gallon of petrol.

Reg Barrett, Southminster, Essex

The more I read the news, the more I believe Boris Johnson is living on another planet. He’s now trying to reintroduce Right to Buy. Doesn’t he realise that because of the cost-of-living crisis nobody can afford to buy a shed let alone a house?

Rod Grey, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts

I’m not surprised that Boris Johnson is trying to get housing association properties into a Right to Buy scheme.

He knows that Margaret Thatcher received votes from thousands of council house tenants following her Right to Buy scheme, people who had never voted Tory before.

At the end of the day, getting votes seems to be what it is all about.

Mr I Rose

Maiden Newton, Dorchester