Skip to main content

Taxpayers lost billions on MoD housing – so I can’t feel sorry for Terra Firma

Privatisation mania in the 1990s led to a disastrous deal with Guy Hands – ministers are right to try to rectify the situation

The government has sold assets at rotten prices many times over the decades, but the sale of Annington Homes in the dying days of John Major’s administration in 1996 was one of the very worst deals. Television’s Michael Portillo, the defence secretary at the time, was the man who approved the sale-and-leaseback of 57,400 Ministry of Defence homes to the Japanese bank Nomura for £1.7bn, a sum that a quarter of a century of house-price inflation has made look ridiculous.

The worst part was that the MoD, in exchange for a 25-year discount on rent, took responsibility for maintenance and refurbishment, tasks that would normally fall to the landlord. When the National Audit Office reviewed the whole arrangement in 2018, it concluded that taxpayers were worse off by £2.2bn-£4.2bn during the first 21 years of a set-up intended to last for 200.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3o4nTsi
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX
Post a Comment
Read more

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw
Post a Comment
Read more

Bodies of Men: the love story taking on toxic masculinity in a time of war

Nigel Featherstone’s new novel tackles traditional conservatism and patriarchy through an unconventional romance How can you be a man and be anti-war? This is the question that Sydney-born novelist Nigel Featherstone, who is a pacifist, considered while he took up a three-month writing residency in a military library. He set out to discover what happens to very different expressions of masculinity placed under military pressure. “Australia does have a very defined, toxic brand of masculinity,” says the bespectacled Featherstone, seated by the window at his local pub facing the railway station at Goulburn, north of Canberra, while men on stools at the nearby bar sink beers and televisions on the walls screen horse racing results. Continue reading... from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2N8piOc
Post a Comment
Read more