Thatcher’s right to buy policy is celebrated but here’s the cost: losses to us all of £194bn and a fractured society

Margaret Thatcher hands a copy of the deeds of a house on Amersham Road, Harold Hill, to James Patterson, the GLC's 12,000th council house buyer, in August 1980. Photograph: PA/Press Association Ima

The housing problem in the UK has become so pervasive that it can sometimes seem natural and eternal, the ever-present background to British life. But it’s important to remember that specific political projects and policy choices brought about the housing crisis – and continue to maintain it.

A new report from the thinktank Common Wealth tallies up some of the continuing costs of one of the culprits: the right to buy, Margaret Thatcher’s signature social policy. It demonstrates that the right to buy has amounted to a massive giveaway of public resources, and one of the largest privatisations in British history.