stop me if you've heard this one before (the dream of home ownership)

new day? new housing secretary....

stop me if you've heard this one before

'the labour government inherited the worst housing crisis in living memory, with a shortage of homes creating soaring house prices that block families from their dream of home ownership...

 let’s get britain building.'

to be brutally honest horsemouth doesn't expect anything like the amount of housing the government are claiming they are going to build will actually get built - and certainly very little of what does get built will be social housing for rent (the type that would do the most to alleviate housing poverty). 

because past experience...

and whatever does get built the existing infrastructure will be expected to carry the additional load (because it will all be more efficiently run with AI and because wes streeting's reforms will be pure genius). 

the dream of home ownership

the dream of home ownership is a big part of the problem. because the politicians view their job as satisfying that aspiration of people not as solving difficult and intractable social problems such as homelessness, poverty and bad housing. the one is pleasant to think about, the other is not. 

historically home ownership was actually possible for many people. it no longer is. 

horsemouth thinks it is important to defend people's ownership of assets (like their homes) and not to allow their complete impoverishment. similarly it is important to prevent the market from controlling the majority of the housing in the country - it is, or can be, a very efficient extractor of value leaving little for people to actually live on. 

he realises this is not marxist orthodoxy. 

he would like the labour party to be focused on building council housing (or its equivalent) this would save it a ton of money on the benefits bill, it would stop (or slow down) the wealth transfer from taxpayers to private landlords via housing benefit.

here a beautiful morning

tomorrow horsemouth is off to the wen for a lightning visit. today (as is usual whenever he travels) he wanders round with itchy feet.