Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

Argos pioneered a new form of catalogue retail where customers made their order in one of the company’s high-street shops before waiting for their items to be brought out from the warehouse at the rear.

Sounds a lot like the British version of the U. S.'s Service Merchandise[0]. Write down your order on a little sheet of paper, hand it to store personnel, wait for your items to come rolling down the roller ramp.

On an unrelated note, but from TFA:

In 1979, 42% of British citizens lived in council housing

Wait a minute, wut? Explain to this former colonist what cultural cue he's missing, because how is it possible that 42% of a country's population lives in public housing? Or is it not "public housing", as in U. S.-style subsidized housing? Or were times just that bad in Great Britain in the 70s? EDIT: thanks for the context, responders. Apologies if I worded it poorly.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise

View on HN

> Wait a minute, wut? Explain to this former colonist what cultural cue he's missing, because how is it possible that 42% of a country's population lives in public housing? Or is it not "public housing", as in U. S.-style subsidized housing? Or were times just that bad in Great Britain in the 70s?

There were a few factors.

1. Yes, many people were very poor. Today, many Britons are still very poor.

2. In the war, an awful lot of housing was destroyed. Entire towns (Harlow and Milton Keynes are prominent examples) were built from open countryside to house the displaced. The overwhelming majority of this housing remained in government ownership until Thatcher's 'Right to Buy' reforms, which are the origin of the present housing crisis in the UK.

3. Prior to the war, the United Kingdom was the most densely populated country on Earth; during the war, people 'mucked in' to help each other during the nationwide trauma of Total War[0], and after the war, returning servicemen and servicewomen demanded that the sacrifices made amount to something. The governments formed by the Labour Party from 1945 to 1980 instituted a great many social reforms - the National Health Service, expansion of state schooling, social care, and so on - that made good on these demands, and were seen as improvements to the nation, rather than government overreach.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war

They also introduced the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, which made it illegal to build any kind of housing or modify existing housing without asking permission from the government. We would not need council housing nowadays if the private sector were simply allowed to fill the market demand. We are no longer in the days when children played in the rubble of cities flattened by the Luftwaffe.

Blaming Thatcher is too kind to the current government. They're the ones who keep listening to nimbys. Thatcher's mistake is that she didn't go far enough; axing the 1947 Act and its descendants should have been part of the supply-side reforms.

The fondness for council housing is an example of a peculiar psychological coping mechanism of Britons, stemming from imperial decline. We pretend a necessary evil was something positively desirable all along. The Americans are right, it is actually embarrassing to have 42% of your population in state-owned housing, I'm sorry to say.

One counterpoint to this is Lisbon, with its unregulated building codes. If you’ve shoulder barged a doorway that’s too narrow, looked out of a window that’s one third obscured by a brick wall, or sat on the can and had your knees hit the walls, you’ll know what I mean.

Planning and standards aren’t quite the same thing, but unregulated building has negative consequences on quality if not quantity. Does terrible Portuguese architecture go hand in hand with an abundance of affordable housing?

This is a common fallacy trotted out by opponents of planning deregulation. They conflate it with building codes, as if the planning laws have anything to do with health and safety, fire mitigation, and so on.

The example we should look to is Japan. Being a country prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, they have rigorous building codes. But they have very loose planning restrictions. Meaning, so long as you make the building safe and habitable, you have a great deal of latitude to build what you want, by right, within an urban or suburban area.

https://twitter.com/380kmh/status/1638247647776473089

https://twitter.com/AntBreach/status/1121362679367598080

It is that key phrase "by right" which is lacking in the UK. You cannot build anything by right. This must change.

Please no-one pay this extreme ideological crankery any note.

feel free to give a counterargument anytime

Asking if things were 'just that bad' is a bit of a value judgement. Yes, they were 'just that bad', but from WWII to 70s the view that the government _should_ be involved in things like housing was a lot more prevalent in the UK than it is now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_house

That was in 1979, the 42%, it's nothing like that now. But yes they are / were greatly subsidised housing. This was after a period of massive home building and the introduction of the welfare state after WW2.

I don't think Britain was a shining economic example back then (it was known as the sick man of Europe), but council houses seemed rather a good thing.

My mother's parents were given one in the late 50's, where they raised four children and my grandparents resided until there deaths 50+ years later. Although council housing still exists it's much rarer now, and your chances of recreating what my grandparents had are slim to none.

Not sure there is a lot of subsidy for council/housing association housing. Building costs paid back over 60 years or so generally. Perhaps land may be allocated?

Not sure it's classed as "times that bad" (although the 70's weren't great), but more a political decision that people of less means could have affordable housing.

Then Thatcher allowed people to buy their council houses, and we are where we now are.

>Explain to this former colonist what cultural cue he's missing, because how is it possible that 42% of a country's population lives in public housing?

Because they criminalized private construction of housing. It can only be done after a lengthy procedure where you beg for permission from a bureaucrat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_Country_Planning_Act_...

>The Act established that planning permission was required for land development; ownership alone no longer conferred the right to develop the land.[1]

The UK between 1945 and 1985 was practically a communist country. The government owned significant portions of industry, housing, healthcare, transport, manufacturing etc. Vital industries including coal, steel, water, electricity, gas, railways, and airlines were nationalized under the Labour government's program following the Second World War. The National Health Service (NHS) was established in 1948, offering government-funded healthcare to all residents.

IIRC correctly in the early 80s the highest tax band was 95%.

I asked GPT4 to convince me that the UK was actually a communist nation during that time, but it won't bite: "While the UK did assert considerable control over various industries from 1950 to 1980 (paralleling elements of communist societies), its democratic governance, surviving private industry, and support of property rights exhibit significant deviations from true communism. The era could more accurately be described as an age of robust social democracy." (emphasis mine)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com