You’d think Theresa May would learn. Well, maybe you wouldn’t. But after the embarrassment of appointing Toby ‘toadmeister’ Young to the board of the new universities regulator, only to see him resign over sexist, misogynist and other loathsome tweets, you’d think she’d think to check the backgrounds of her new appointments to make sure there isn’t anything immediately obvious to make them unsuitable for the role.
But Theresa May has still appointed Dominic Raab as the new housing minister.
Only a year ago, Labour attempted to get a simple amendment added to the Housing and Planning Bill. It wasn’t an amendment you’d think would be particularly onerous or controversial, as it would have required that houses rented to human beings be ‘fit for human habitation’.
Raab voted against making it a legal requirement for housing to be fit for people to live in.
But perhaps May’s problem is less that she didn’t check his voting record as that she struggled to find any Tories who didn’t vote against making homes fit for humans to live in. As the party voting record for the amendment shows, not a single Tory MP voted to support it, while 309 Tories voted to defeat it.
Including one Theresa May.
A despicable attitude toward poorer people in rented homes is not the only blot on Raab’s record, however – assuming, of course, that you consider such things a ‘blot’.
Raab has been criticised for ‘stupid and deeply offensive’ comments about foodbank users:
He has also been dismissive or offensive toward disabled people, has called attacked feminists for their ‘obnoxious bigotry’, co-authored a book calling British workers ‘the worst idlers in the world‘ and his name was included on the list of alleged Tory ‘sex pests’ last autumn.
Comment:
All things considered, Dominic Raab will fit right in on the Tory front bench – but will appall ordinary people who are aware of his background and especially those struggling on low incomes, in poor-quality housing or homeless.
As one SKWAWKBOX follower said today on Twitter in response to our article about Esther McVey’s appointment as Work & Pensions Secretary:
Every element of this reshuffle is an f-you to someone.
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I am definitely not Labour but as millions in the country can see – May appears intent on making lives more of a misery and more austerity for millions of \British people. Her appointments hardly support her so called wishes to make things better for the British People. Oh of course she means the rich not the poor. She and her tribe have to go- urgently!!
Good comment now all you have to do to back up your wishes is vote Labour at the next election please . A vote for any other party will help enable another TORY Govt and none of us sane people would want that
Yes and 2 Tory MPs (the odious – one some would suggest – for Shipley and some other irrelevant) talked out a Labour proposal to make private landlords also responsible for their tenants anti-social behaviour like public sector landlords. Oh and these 2 Tory MPs apparently just happen to be private landlords! Funny how the Tories (and Lib Dem numbskulls) as one of the first acts of the dreadful Coalition Govt. gave tax cuts to private landlords with multiple properties; probably as true Neo-Liberals believing the private rented sector was the solution when perhaps for a significant number of people its lack of regulation and lack of security of tenure (including rent controls) some would suggest is part of the problem. Kick the Tories out and DECENT & AFFORDABLE HOMES FOR ALL!
I find it strange that every time Maybot has to fill some sort of position within her various tiers of Cabinet! She manages to get rid of one foul scumbag, who’s ‘no use to man nor beast’ just to replace them with another who is even worse! It seems to me that she has at her fingertips a bottomless well filled to the brim with such nasties! I’ve been around for quite a number of Parliaments but never have I seen one which seems to have a plethora of such downright scoundrels who are just a disgusting bunch of self serving, social climbing ignoramuses who just want hang on to power no matter what! Tories were always a bit dodgy as far as I’m concerned but this present bunch just take ‘the biscuit’! In fact, if it’s not nailed down they take the teeth from our mouths and the pennies off any dead person’s eyes, as long as they’re working class! We really do have to kick these bastards out but I wouldn’t just rely on putting an X on a bit of paper which might get us some sort of change for, let’s face it, there are still too many Blairite Tory Lites hanging around in the PLP for any one to feel that the Labour Party can actually deliver fundamental Socialist changes! It’s very likely, at the moment, that with too many Tory arses around in too many of society’s influential positions that, despite Comrade Corbyn’s niceness and good intentions, he and his few allies will have to compromise themselves into Tory Lite oblivion so that the electorate will, once again, feel, with much justification, that they’ve been betrayed by those who talk a goodish fight but not much else! If anybody really wants to see a genuine change then the Labour Party has to adopt a very radical Socialist programme which contains such things as plans for workers control, not affordable housing but Council Housing controlled not by red taped, moribund, highly selective Councils but controlled by the communities and tenants who will be the recipients of these homes! There’s so much more to do and say around the centralised Corporations which must be broken up and brought under the control of the workers and the communities the would argue they serve rather than exploit through low ages (except for the favoured few) and high prices! There’s even more to do and say about those markets which are the playgrounds of speculators and profiteers who have offshore banking arrangements (including those blood suckers with smiley faces, the Royals whose loyalty to the people of this country is highly questionable when it comes to putting their money (which we give them) where their unctious mouths are! This is just a beginning which needs to be clearly addressed if we have any chance of clearing out those who few who are culpable when it comes to destroying the lives of the many! The rot runs deeper in this 21st Century of ours and the corruption of our democracy smells worse than any of the slums brought about by the, so called, entrepreneurs of the first and second industrial revolutions!
Hey Skwarkbox, Namaste 🙂
Mayfly surrounds herself with despicable people to deflect attention away from her own atrocious character: Evident is that she is very desperate indeed and finds no problem whatsoever in putting cannon fodder before her own job: of course Raab will recompensed from the tax-payers pot for their trouble, patsy that he is.
Come the glorious day May and the Beasts she surrounds herself, will live to regret everything they’ve done to the people of the UK. The People aren’t going to stay quiet forever whilst being abused by politicians who define themselves by their crassness, offensive comments, arrogance, contempt, and unethical, twisted and misguided world-view. They really are a very sick mentally deranged group of people running the UK with vision that begins and ends with personal wealth acquisition and filthy dirty greed.
Raab will no doubt welcome any numbers of Homeless who knock on his tax-payers funded front door seeking a well-appointed dwelling for the night – one that is certainly ‘fit for human habitation’.
These deluded Tory degenerates need to go, and power be put back in the hands of a real government placing people before profit.
Love and World Peace. Namaste 🙂
DN