Safe as houses
Michael Gove is the gift that keeps on giving. On Sunday he was declaring his “fear for democracy” if the young can’t get on the housing ladder.
Despite the obvious fact that the property qualification for voting disappeared well over 100 years ago and council house residents, and private renters are not all Nazis or Communists, the obvious point is that Michael Gove is in charge of housing policy.
If he wants to encourage home ownership to save the UK from a dictatorship then he is in the right job. Any time you want to do something Minister, do let us know.
The simple fact is that he and all his predecessors for the last 14 years have been failures. In fact they have made the situation worse not only by not building enough, but now by making the planning system a Nimby’s charter and forcing up house prices by subsidising mortgages.
But what they have really woken up to is that the whole point of the Thatcherite drive to increase home ownership was based on the knowledge that home owners were more likely to vote Tory. The policies designed to achieve that have however created the complete opposite. Wealthy, elderly, multiple home owners, who now want tax breaks to stop them having to pay tax on their profits. Home ownership has been in decline for decades now.
I suspect the fact that the young detest the Tories by a huge margin is what has awoken Mr Gove’s interest in home ownership and nothing else. Still that hasn’t stopped the right of the party and their fellow travellers, latching onto his comments and blaming immigration for the problem.
After Brussels, immigration is the new whipping boy for the loons. We need both, and are worse off because of Brexit and would be in a terrible mess without immigration.
But there are votes in it so we now know what to expect.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media