Boris vs Cameron

A political row has broken out today over the government's plan to limit future weekly housing benefits for people on welfare to £400 ($630). Now anyone in the rest of the world could hardly fathom that local governments would throw that kind of money at people who do not work, do not pay taxes and cannot afford living so extravagantly to begin with. Not surprisingly I support Boris Johnson in principle; but I also deem the repercussions of the government's plan as not severe enough to shelve it altogether. The fact remains: if you are living on government hand-outs, it is not unfairly harsh to expect such dwellers to see cheaper accommodations.

The government has decided that routine cases, where families receive up to £700 a week just to be able to live in London, is unsustainable in the current economic climate.

So far so good. Today the Mayor of London, who is involved in a bid for re-election in 2012, took up the issue and clearly embarked on a confrontational course with the prime minister. The row came as MPs debated planned changes to housing benefit, announced in last week's Spending Review, which it is estimated will affect about 17,000 people in London if introduced in full.

Several London-based MPs (from both sides of the aisle, or rather the dispatch box as it is in the Commons) have attacked the proposed new caps, due to come into effect in April and their likely impact on the poorest people living in the capital.

Mr Johnson told today that "the last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs". I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together."

"We will not see and we will not accept any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of London. On my watch, you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living and have put down roots."






HOUSING BENEFIT CAP
£250 for a one-bedroom property
£290 for a two-bedroom property
£340 for a three-bedroom property
£400 for a four-bedroom property

On Thursday the LibDem Mr Clegg said he "very strongly disagreed" with the way that the London mayor had expressed himself while Business Secretary Vince Cable went further, accusing him of "inflammatory language on a difficult and sensitive issue."

Asked about the prime minister's reaction, No 10 said he "does not agree with what Boris Johnson has said or indeed the way he said it".

Mr Johnson's office later issued a statement saying he had been "quoted out of context" and was confident that negotiations would result in the reforms being introduced with "minimal problems" for London. "My consistent position has been that the government is absolutely right to reform the housing benefit system which has become completely unsustainable," it said. "I do not agree with the wild accusations from defenders of the current system that reform will lead to social cleansing. It will not, and if you listened carefully to what I said, no such exodus will take place on my watch. But the point I was making this morning is that London has specific needs due to the exceptional way in which the housing market works in the capital and it is my job as mayor to make the government aware of these."


According to government figures, 21,000 people will be affected by new caps on the amount families can claim for five, four, three, two and one-bed room properties across the UK including 17,000 in London, the majority of whom are out of work.