Sometimes, politics looks like an absurd fight over different versions of the same words. Rishi Sunak says he wants to help people “realise the dream of owning their own home”; Keir Starmer tells us he will “save the dream of home ownership”. Even if the most urgent aspects of our housing crisis are about the simple lack of roofs over people’s heads, this is where the political conversation largely remains: the old Tory vision of the property-owning democracy, it seems, must not be allowed to die.
There are policy differences both within and between the two big Westminster parties. Labour has plans for a fresh crop of new towns, and its tough talk about delivering social housing highlights a longstanding Tory blind spot. The Conservatives, meanwhile, are still gripped by tensions between those who want to build, build, build, and MPs terrified about what that would mean for their electoral prospects. But, at the heart of the debate about housing, there is also an underlying consensus. For both parties, utopia still seems to consist of the kind of projects put up by the UK’s corporate builders and overwhelmingly sold on the private market: if this approach can be expanded and accelerated, with a few nips and tucks, all will allegedly be well.
