Gove finally has a plan to tackle the housing crisis, but only because the end is nigh for the Tories

‘The so-called Cambridge 2040 plan is tactfully described as being at ‘concept’ stage.’ Cambridge city centre. Photograph: Parsons Andrew Parsons/P/A

There are times in politics when a party just has to go for broke. But those times are not necessarily when it is winning.

It’s when the game is finally up, and defeat looks virtually guaranteed, that for some politicians there can be a weird feeling of liberation. The choice is now between hanging around waiting miserably for the inevitable, or grasping a few nettles on the way out – by which I mean tackling the things previously shoved into a box marked “too difficult”.