Comments on: Opinion: Margaret Hodge should go

By: molly

molly — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 10:27:59 +0000

M Hodge does not have a healthy majority she has a decreasing majority and she knows it. The one and only reason M Hodge wrote the article was votes pure and simple. She does not care one bit about Barking, she has never in her years as its MP raised the issues on housing either with the government or with the local council. In the past year she has made no effort to attack the BNP in the borough or the uselessness of the 12 councillors they have. She knows she is in big trouble with a large number of party members in Barking following her outburst just before last years local elections and she stupidly believes that this years comments will save her, just goes to show how bad her judgement is.

By: John Baker

John Baker — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:22:09 +0000

Of course she should go. She is quite blatantly attempting to whip up race-hatred in order to hide the fact that her government are to blame for the housing crisis. She is quite literally setting poor people on each other, provoking them into fighting each other for the crumbs her government chucks at them. This is just despicable but apparently fascist rantings are quite acceptable to the Labour party these days – as long as you don’t mention the real problems, you’re alright by New Labour.

By: Steve Cooke

Steve Cooke — Mon, 28 May 2007 13:26:06 +0000

Simply stating that a complete lie is true does not make it so.

By: it's a one horse race

it's a one horse race — Mon, 28 May 2007 11:24:58 +0000

Oh here we go again. LibDems being soft on migrants to help save their votes in inner cities.

Fact – if you’re a white Briton who has paid NI all your life, you’ll be second in the queue for housing behind some random immigrant based soely on soft left namby pamby PC crap like thw FibDems always spout.

The working class don’t vote BNP for the sake of something to do. Tere is only one party sick of bowing to immigrant pressure – the BNP will beat the LibDems on this issue if you keep running away from it.

By: Steve Cooke

Steve Cooke — Mon, 28 May 2007 08:41:56 +0000

In reply to Jim – here’s a quote from John Cruddas: ‘In the six years I have been an MP, in Margaret’s neighbouring constituency of Dagenham, we have never housed unregularised migrants or asylum seekers in local authority accommodation’.

The planet I live on is one in which I can recognise that people with different coloured skin from my own are every bit as likely to be British as me.

The problem is obviously twofold: a) there’s a lack of social housing, and b) people wrongly lay the blame at the feet of economic migrants.

By: jim

jim — Sun, 27 May 2007 22:00:47 +0000

‘As far as I can see Margaret Hodge has highlighted a problem that doesn’t really exist to any great extent,’

Am not sure which planet you are living on!
Instead of writing this ill informed prose,why don’t you get off your backside and visit Barking & Dagenham or parts of London & see the scale of the problem.

By: Laurence Boyce

Laurence Boyce — Sun, 27 May 2007 20:34:34 +0000

Yes, very good article. Fear of electoral loss would be the obvious explanation for Hodge’s dubious utterances, though in fact she has a perfectly healthy majority.

By: Meral Ece,

Meral Ece, — Sun, 27 May 2007 20:13:33 +0000

I very much agree with Steve Cooke’s considered views on this. I knew Margaret when she was leader of Islington Council, where I am now a councillor myself. She would have been hounded out of Islington for uttering these views. Years ago a rogue opposition SDP councillor in Islington coined the phrase ‘Housing for the sons and daughters of the people of Islington’ – code for white working class families from Islington.This was condemned by her and her Labour colleagues. A few of the Dep. Labour Leader hopefuls have come out and condemned her views, otherwise -silence from the Labour Party.
If a Lib Dem MP were to have expressed these views, we would have all been branded a ‘racist party’
Social housing is in short supply precisely because the Labour Government did nothing for years to stem the flow of council house sell offs at knock down prices. Far too few houses have been built to replace them. Ironically, coming from a refugee family herself (albeit a wealthy one), she is clearly pandering to the false views and perceptions, and we’ve all heard them on the doorstep, that migrants are given preferential treatment when it comes to allocating council housing. Housing must and should continue to be allocated on a needs basis, not on race.
It is an absolute minefield to even consider changing housing policy on the lines of race.

By: tony hill

tony hill — Sun, 27 May 2007 18:18:02 +0000

I’m a bit surprised at the lack of response to this post. I don’t much care for Margaret Hodge, but she is raising issues which need to be debated, albeit with sensitivity, without participants in the debate being labelled racist.