Tory Housing and Pension advice to the common people of Britain

IDS - Housing the common people

The UK's Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has warned young people not to rely on home ownership to fund their retirement. Unveiling a radical overhaul of the state pension, the Work and Pensions Secretary said rising house prices were putting bricks and mortar out of reach. He added it was "absolutely imperative" that the Government took steps to "secure the position of the next generation" and encourage saving.


Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire

He added that 70 per cent of today's pensioners owned their own homes, but their grandchildren were "struggling to even get a foot on the housing ladder" because house prices for first-time buyers had risen by 40 per cent in real terms over the last decade. "The next generation will not be able to rely on bricks and mortar in the way their parents have been able to," he said. "It's no wonder our children are increasingly cynical about saving." Now Iain Duncan Smith happens to live not too far from the Sage's Castle in Buckinghamshire and I happen to know a bit about his own bricks and mortar.


Lord and Lady Cottesloe

This is such good advice from a person who when he was made redundant had the comfort and support of his father in law, John Fremantle, 5th Baron Cottesloe, who built and gave him a house on his 1,400 acres of land at Swanbourne, in North Buckinghamshire where IDS lives to this day. Iain Duncan Smith is married to Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle. As IDS observed during the Foot & Mouth epidemic, he understands the plight of the ordinary farmer. And no doubt the ordinary person made redundant who doesn't have the cushion of an aristocratic father-in-law?

His “ordinary farmer” father-in-law is the 5th Baron Cottesloe. He also inherited the Austrian noble title "Baron Fremantle", which is an authorised title in the United Kingdom by Warrant of April 27, 1932. He was Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire between 1984 and 1997. An Old Etonian and former naval commander, he owns the Swanbourne estate in Buckinghamshire, which includes the picture-postcard village of Swanbourne, complete with post office, village store, tea-rooms, prep school and houses, plus rolling acres of prime farmland. Lord and Lady Cottesloe live in the Old House, a manor house set in five acres. As Betsy is the Cottesloes' oldest child, the next village squire could be Iain Duncan Smith. Despite attempts by Tory Central Office to present him otherwise, Duncan Smith is resolutely upper class.


The Fremantle Family's Betsey Wynne Pub at Swanbourne.

The Pub’s name comes from Betsey, who married Thomas Fremantle when he was a sea Captain with the British Fleet in Naples, 1797. Horatio Nelson was the best man. From their prolific union stems the complete Fremantle line of distinguished Naval Officers, including three Admirals and the present head of the family, Lord Cottesloe, who lives at Swanbourne. IDS's wife is named after her and Fremantle, Swanbourne and Cottesloe in Western Australia are named after the family who claimed Western Australia for the crown and founded the Swan River Colony, today Perth.

IDS served as a British Army officer in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981 and his father was a Group Captain in the RAF. Intriguingly, given his wife's family wealth, his two homes, and his children going to public schools, Duncan Smith has complained that life as an MP had been "a financial disaster”. From his aristocratic marriage, military background, free house and personal wealth of over £1 million he is able to understand the hearts and minds of the ordinary men and women of Britain.


IDS cares about housing


Now let us in the spirit of the Tories Big Society all sing the first verse and chorus of the hoary old anthem “We are all in this together.”


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23929767-pension-reform-pound-140-weekly-payments-in-major-overhaul-to-reward-savers.do