Housing is a major sticking point for the Tories. They know it, we know it, and the public know it too. On their watch, first with their LibDem friends and now alone with a majority thinner than a major donor’s tax return, the bottom fell out of the house building figures. Cash strapped councils made poorer by a deliberate attempt to destroy local government services had no readies to produce social housing. The Tories curbed housing association building plans by announcing the extension of right to buy to their tenants (plans now quietly dropped). They left towns and cities across the Midlands and North scarred by cancelling Labour’s housing pathfinder renewal scheme while, perversely, stumping up the cash for demolitions of “undesirable” housing stock. And have sat by while buy-to-let and second home ownership took off for the fortunate few. Indeed, their Mayor of London encouraged international capital to park its cash in property with deleterious consequences for ordinary house buyers. Continue reading →