Right to Buy is a deeply unequal stopgap, not a solution to the Housing Crisis

Under George Osborne's direction, the Conservative approach to tackling the housing crisis was to resurrect Thatcherism. This came in the form of Right to Buy, the cheap sell off of social housing to first time buyers.

The trouble is, from the start, it was always going to be a time and resource limited solution. Eventually, as always, the Tories would run out of public assets to privatise and the well would run dry.

As New Statesman Political Editor George Eaton put it, "the problem with Thatcherism is that eventually you run out of other people's assets."

Today, the homelessness charity Crisis and the Local Government Association (LGA) were on the same page in calling out the effects of Right to Buy on social housing: the draining of a vital resource that is not being replaced.

Right to Buy, like Thatcherite policies in the 1980s, plugged gaps created by the withdrawal of the state with privatised public assets to buy time for the private sector to get prepared to take over and pick up the slack.

Osborne's policy kept the middle class housing sector afloat at the expense of social housing - even that technically owned by housing association independent from the government - which was sorely needed to provide affordable shelter for the least well off.

Now as then, the results are wildly inconsistent and deeply unequal.

Crisis have put forward a strategy to eliminate poverty in the next decade that puts new social housing - a hundred thousand new homes a year - at the centre. It combines these with a national rollout of Housing First and the strengthening of the rights of renters.

The LGA say that the core of any sustainable social housing plans, like those proposed by Crisis, must by necessity be devolving proper funding to local government so it can get on with the work of building homes.

For progressives, redistributing funds to local government for affordable and social housing is a clear cut issue - especially to poorer areas that see the least benefit from a scheme that doesn't even return the full receipts from the sale of local housing assets. But will Conservatives listen?

Government turns to finger-pointing as it puts pressure on firms and councils to deliver on it's new homes promises

Photograph: Scaffold Repair Construction from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

It seems that the government has woken up to the need to act on domestic issues. And yet, with the pressure on, the government has decided to start by pointing the finger at others.

Theresa May's ministry, and it's predecessor, have made some major pledges on housing that have not been met. Pledges of several hundreds of thousands of new homes a year that have not been delivered - as admitted by Housing Secretary Sajid Javid last year in a review.

So the government has laid it's plan to tackle this. On Sunday, the Javid issued a warning, via The Sunday Times, that the government would be putting pressure on councils to meet it's targets - prefacing plans to change up it's framework to push even higher targets, set against affordability of local homes.

The aggressive tone was complemented by the threat of stripping from councils decision-making power over what is built in local areas. The threat of intervention is not one that will be taken lightly.

The Prime Minister, today, followed up on Javid's set up to issue a warning to home building firms. She criticised the practice of 'land banking' and announced that firms could be penalised for delays with refusal of planning permission for future projects.

While she acknowledged that young people had a right to be angry - and that, without the 'bank of mum and dad', many would find it impossible to get a foothold on the property - she has answered that anger by shifting the blame to local councils and building firms.

There are real questions about the actual impact of land banking, why firms take so much time to build after planning permission has been received and whether supply is throttled - against which the industry defends itself vigorously.

But even more important are the big questions, that are being ignored, about the government's role in this present crisis. There have been deep cuts to local authority funding. Schemes like help-to-buy have drained social housing stock without adequate restitution or replacement - and driven up prices.

Will pressure on councils and firms to hit higher targets within narrower time frames deliver on policy promises? Or will it just increase the risk of corners being cut?

The Local Government Association (LGA) responded to the government's announcement, and threat of intervention, by saying it was 'misguided' and that the basic block on progress for local authorities was lack of funds with which to build their own homes - for which borrowing powers were needed.

As with Chancellor Philip Hammond's budget, these measures are just tweaks and salves. The Government's blame game isn't addressing the core problems - it's finding scapegoats. That isn't good enough.

There are bigger questions to ask about long term investment, about the role of land and the capture of it's value by a class of rentiers. The government is avoiding these problems in the hope that they'll go away. They won't.

Affordable Housing: That seven years of government was nearly reduced to a bitter meme reflects disappointment with Conservative broken promises

Conservative flagship housing policies have yet to deliver anything even resembling an affordable housing market where young people can get their foot on the ladder.

When the phrase "No Deposit Required" started trending on social media on Sunday, there was a rumble of excitment. Unfortunately, it was not trending for the reason that people, momentarily, thought it was (it was actually a gambling promotion).

The mistaken belief was that it was a brave new housing policy announcement, with an level of ambition that might make a real dent in the housing crisis. A policy that might really help make home ownership affordable.

The trend quickly became filled with the same joke - "I thought this was a housing policy, but..." - and, for a moment, seven years of government teetered on the brink of being reduced to a single bitter meme.

That disappointment is dangerous for such a weak government and, that it spread so easily in a free form moment, is a big threat to a party that relies so heavily on well practised, old media control over the message and tone of politics.

The Conservatives rely on controlling public discourse and their grip is slipping. That is a sign of Conservative failure, symbolised by Philip Hammond's Autumn Budget in which he promised help to young people toward owning homes.

The breakdown of his signature offer of cutting stamp duty for first time buyers, however, is a narrow policy whose benefit will mostly be helpful to those who are already home owners - a key Conservative audience - and beyond a narrow group, may actually lead to homes being more expensive.

While Hammond put his faith in tinkering around the edges, with some subtle shifts in regulation, it's clear that out there in the public imagination tackling the growing crisis of affordable housing is going to take bigger ideas.

The fact that there was excitment about a policy of no deposits when buying a house - a policy that would come at an extraordinary cost, even for renters - shows just how far the May-Hammond government is from the scale of response the public is expecting.

For Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, that will be music to their ears - perhaps a sign that their message is getting through or has a receptive audience. However, Labour is not free from singeing by the burn of this particular trending topic.

Housing is an issue that no party has adequately dealt with - not even William Beveridge, when he drew his ideas for the welfare system, had an answer for housing.

Homes are too expensive and the growth and security of incomes is low and sliding. Land and property remain archaic, rentier dominated, sectors - cartels like great spiders sat in webs in the midst our economy, catching our resources, extracting and hoarding them.

Conservative failures and broken promises have fed disappointment that risks turning bitter. Progressives must take seriously the need to unravel these webs, and push out the fat lazy spiders, on which so much of our economic potential is snagged.

Budget 2017: Cautious Hammond has salves not solutions, as Budget falls short of action

Chancellor Philip Hammond was in bombastic mood for delivering his second Budget of 2017, making jokes despite the Office of Budget Responsibility's projections that listed productivity as down and growth falling. He brushed past those figures with lots of Brexiter-placating language and an opening salvo of £3bn put aside to get the country Brexit ready.

In the build-up to the Budget, Sarah Ann Harris in The Huffington Post UK posted an article listing those measures that charities said would be needed to address Britain's varied crises. Together, they would have required at least £10bn of new funding.

In the Budget, Hammond acknowledged the pressures and hardships and said that he was prepared to invest. But when the announcements came, they ultimately offered no more than half of the requested amounts to alleivate hardships.

On the disastrous impact of Universal Credit, Hammond went halfway towards the requests, even of MPs on his own benches, of reducing restraints on claimants - taking one week rather than two out of the waiting time to receive funds. With other easing measures, Hammond called this a £1.5bn package of support. Yet this was step didn't even reach the minimum requests for alleviation.

On the NHS, the Chancellor offered up some large numbers. These break down to smaller numbers, though. The figure of £10bn, for capital spending - infrastructure, buildings, etc - is spread across the five years of the Parliament, meaning no more than £2mn-£3mn a year. Another £2.8bn will be spread over three years, with just £350mn front-loaded to avert crisis this winter.

There was an olive branch to nurses in the form of a commitment to fund a pay rise for nurse, but this was conditional on negotiating a new contract settlement with the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

To address the housing crisis, and in particular affordability, the Chancellor announced a £44bn fund. This was, however, then broken down. This fund would be only partly public funding, with the other parts being loans and guarantees, and was intended to run through to the middle of the 2020s.

That could stretch that £44bn over eight years, or even more, meaning the yearly amount would actually be much lower, at around £5bn-£6bn - of which only a part would be a public funding rise.

At most this overall package, to tackle a range of social crises in Britain, will come to £2.4mn/year, plus only a part of the around £6bn/year package being invested in the housing market. That looks like being a long way short of the £10bn minimum requested.

The Chancellor found some money to invest, with £500m for various areas of tech, a few billion more to extend the Nation Productivity Fund, and a new £2.5bn fund to support new innovative, knowledge intensive, companies. Another £1.7bn was found for cities and city regions for various local infrastructure projects. The reality though, is that most of that will be spread over several years.

The Conservative Chancellor framed this as rejecting extra borrowing and instead using some of the headroom within his fiscal rules. However, there are still questions over how the Chancellor is going to fund these and the reality is there will still be lots more borrowing, with the process of eliminating the  debt and deficit extended over a longer period.

The headline offer made by Hammond was to end Stamp Duty for first time home buyers on homes up to £300,000. While this was trailed as a boon to young people, the reality is that it will serve current homeowners best - likely helping and subsidising current people who are, on the face of it, more likely to already be Tory voters.

The cautious Chancellor had hedged his bets with this Budget. He has tried to appeal to all sides, to make everyone feel like they came out of this Budget with a little something. The reality is that no one has gotten what they wanted, although Brexiters may have been midly appeased by £3bn and adopting their rhetoric.

Social pressures in Britain demand a response, but the Chancellor has decided not to act. Hammond has stuck with cheap salves rather than paying for the solutions. To make real progress, we need more from the Exchequer.

General Election 2017 - Labour Manifesto: Stepping up the role of the public sector

Labour's manifesto, For The Many, Not The Few, proposes a major rethink of the role of the public sector.

At the core of Labour's 2017 manifesto is the role of the public sector. It has a place at the centre of all the party's ideas on how to rebalance Britain's economy.

Labour has promised to be "radical and responsible", to end the years of austerity but to do it "within our means", to address a "growing sense of anxiety and frustration. For the Labour leadership, as represented in this manifesto, that means rethinking the government's approach to public and private, and to restore the public element.

That puts Labour in stark contrast with the Conservatives, and fundamentally questions the government's approach - that would strip away the public in favour of the private. As Labour announced its plans in parts over the past couple of years, there was a surge of criticism for the idea of any policy that would see more public spending. The austerity thinking that public debt, government debt, is a burden that must be lessened has been wielded against Labour at every turn.

There remains a strong current, despite the slow discrediting of austerity economics, that clings to a fawning infatuation with the idea that public debt, not underinvestment, will blight the future and that the market is the great innovator. But, as the economist Mariana Mazzucato has argued, this is at best a half-truth.

In reality, public sector plays the role of innovator and risk taker, not just shaping markets but opening them. Meanwhile, private actors are aggressively risk averse, even stifling innovation, all while opportunistically exploiting the publicly-funded advances - taking the credit and returning little of the wealth created.

A New Public Role

This Labour manifesto seizes upon that idea: an innovative public sector that can take the initiative and intervene, without overbearing state management, to invest and promote growth and support innovation in the name of the common good.

It proposes a National Transformation Fund, for instance, that will invest £250 billion over ten years in improving the country's infrastructure, aimed at promoting and speeding along future economic growth. It pledges improvements to transport links, for renewable and low carbon energy, and an industrial strategy that invests in creating and enabling a high-skill economy.

And, of course, there are the pledges to 'renationalise' energy, rail and water. Having come upon this word, a moment needs to be taken to reiterate something. The word 'renationalise' has been used for Labour's plans, but isn't entirely accurate. The Left (as a positive) and the Right (as a negative) have both used the word, but to be clear: Labour's plans don't propose costly industry takeovers by the state.

Remember: state-ownership is just one form of public-ownership, but it is not the only form. There are municipal, community and co-operative models that are also public options that do not require or propose centralised state management - whether you think that would be a good thing or too overbearing and inefficient.

As for the cost of 'renationalisation'? Well, a rail franchise will lapse at no cost and new public rail and energy companies, while requiring startup, would have the capacity to be self-supporting. In short, 'nationalisation' is a crudely charged word that hides a lot of potential nuance.

In Labour's actual manifesto, the focus is on democratic ownership of the economy. For instance, the party propose a "right to own" policy that makes "employees the buyer of first refusal". So when the party says it wants publicly-owned regional water companies, there is scope to think co-operative and community, rather than state.

As for rail returning to public ownership: it's already publicly-owned. It's just franchised out in pieces for companies to turn a profit from it. Returning these franchises on expiry is not a major outlay, though it could take time, and they could become self-supporting, employee-run services rather than being state-run.

Likewise, the party's plan for public energy is much smaller in scale than the 'renationalised' headlines suggest. Rather than wholesale takeovers, Labour have announced their intention to set up local, decentralised, publicly-owned energy companies to compete with the big energy corporations and lower prices.

The new role for the public sector doesn't end there. The party propose a National Investment Bank, that will work with private investors, to make £250 billion available to lend to "small business, co-operatives and innovative projects" across Britain - offering "patient, long-term finance to R&D-intensive investments".

The NIB's work in getting credit flowing again may be assisted by breaking up the publicly-owned RBS into a series of smaller, "local public banks" - pending a consultation on the proposal.

In housing, there is a public role too. Half of the one million new homes that Labour are promising will be housing association and council homes for affordable rents, promises the manifesto - with higher standards being set for the quality of homes.

The clear purpose behind this is to restore a sense of social security and of communities owned by the people who live in them.

That is why a rethought public role goes hand-in-hand with promises of new rights and protections for renters, a National Education Service that brings childcare, comprehensive education and free higher and further education under one coordinated heading, putting more funding into social care, and taking steps to protect workers by tackling insecure and precarious jobs.

It also chimes well with the proposal to make active use of the national and local spending on procurement of services from the private sector. That means using a bill amounting to £200 billion a year to promote, and invest in, good jobs based in local economies at businesses run to high standards.

A £10 living wage, four more bank holidays, increased paid paternity leave and more secure contracts at work, indicate an intention to create a less precarious everyday environment. While funding ten thousand more police officers and strengthening laws around domestic violence and violence against women and girls, demands that these rebuild communities be safe spaces.

There is even a nod to restoring some judicial oversight to investigatory powers - though the word 'surveillance' does not appear - to ensure than individual rights and civil liberties are not weakened.

And the NHS, Labour's crown jewel, will also see a large injection of new money. The party's plan involves additional funding of more than £30 billion into the service "over the next Parliament", with the NHS also benefiting from the National Transformation Fund to make much needed upgrades to buildings and equipment.

To put Labour's ideas into action will require funding. Te main source for Labour promises will be a tax rise for only the top five percent of earners, all earning over £80,000. There will be higher corporation tax, with small businesses protected by a lower rates and less frequent paperwork.

In all these measures are estimated to raise the extra £50 billion the party needs for it's policies - though the IFS stresses that some of that is conditional on somewhat unpredictable factors.

There is one glaring ommission: the absence of a pledge to end the Tory working age benefit freeze, which has led to deep cuts with further restrictions to come. With the deep impact that welfare cuts have already made it is a remarkable gap.

At the manifesto launch, ITV's Robert Peston raised this point. He asked Jeremy Corbyn why, when there is clear evidence of the coming impact, that ending the welfare freeze isn't mentioned. It isn't in the manifesto, but Corbyn responded that there will be a review of the situation and there will be no benefits freeze. But the lack of costing here is notable.

There are provisions, though, to repeal cuts to the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), implement the court decision on Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) to protect those with mental health conditions, scrap the Bedroom Tax, scrap the sanctions regime and restore housing benefit for young people.

The Co-operative Party

And let's not forget that Labour is part of a century-long electoral pact with the Co-operative Party, with whom it stands joint candidates. Running and sitting as Labour and Co-operative Party, or Labour Co-op for short, the alliance has had and continues to have a number of well known MPs, such as Ed Balls, Gareth Thomas and Stella Creasy.

In addition to the Labour manifesto that these candidates will be judged against, the Co-op Party has also published its own priorities. These include expanded detail on both employees and consumers having a place in the shake-up of boardrooms, more localism and public services and utilities that are tied closer to their communities.

But there is very much something for the co-operative movement in the Labour manifesto. Along with backing for more democratic public ownership, there is a commitment to doubling the size of the co-operative sector with targeted investment - matching a Co-op Party aim.

In fact, there is a strong sense of the co-operative movement and of co-operative influence running right through the Labour Manifesto proposals. Everywhere the new role for the public sector come appended with 'local', 'regional' and 'democratic'.

Progressive Alliance

This election will not be, however, be a straight contest between the Conservatives and Labour. So the question is, what crossover is there between Labour and the other progressive parties on policy?

Well, there are plenty of crossovers, though cooperation at the party level will be unlikely. The leadership has made it's position clear and that sticks to Labour's longstanding attitude that it alone is the progressive party of Britain and everyone should rally to its standard.

There are, of course, also issues of disunity behind the scenes within the Labour Party itself - never mind between parties. There are many an "independent-minded" Labour MP who in 2017 are standing virtually as independents, disavowing Corbyn, and they look like they may finally be ready to split away - perhaps even to form a new party.

On one level, it might actually be a breath of fresh air, perhaps even making it easier for the two groups to work together in a more amicable fashion. But Labour's relationship with the Co-op Party and with trade unions could make a split a bit messy. And the party's legacy is something over which fights have been bitter.

However - all of the factionalism aside - on housing, on tax, on welfare and healthcare, there are plenty of crossovers and a lot of compatibility to be found between the Left and Centre parties.

For housing, their is a common consensus that Britain needs more homes that are more affordable, and that renters need far more protection and longer term contracts. Both Liberals and Greens match Labour in these ambitions.

As for public utilities, even the Liberal Democrats - seen by some on the Left as too far to the economic Right - maintain a strong vein of support for co-operatives and democratic ownership.

Local, community-owned utilities are no hard Left socialist experiment (as the Right would demonise it). They're a tried and tested system, with broad progressive support and proof of results.

And on health and social care there is broad support both for reversing Tory cuts and for taxation to pay for increased spending - which includes restoring dignity in welfare for people with disabilities and difficulties both physical and mental.

For a grassroots progressive alliance to work, voters need to be able to find common cause across party lines. Labour's pitch is clearly anti-austerity, clearly wishes to restore the public sector, and clearly wants the rich to pay a fair share.

Whether you like Jeremy Corbyn or not, there are plenty of reasons in this manifesto for progressives to vote Labour. But perhaps of more importance, there is plenty to make voting tactically for Labour more than palatable.

References

'For the many, not the few: The Labour Party Manifesto 2017 - A manifesto for a better, fairer Britain'; from the Labour Party; as of 16 May 2017.

'General election 2017: Corbyn launches Labour manifesto'; on the BBC; 16 May 2017.

Mariana Mazzucato's 'Let's rethink the idea of the state: it must be a catalyst for big, bold ideas'; in The Guardian; 15 December 2013.

'General election 2017: Labour pledges to build 1m new homes'; on the BBC; 27 April 2017.

Shehab Khan's 'Labour to pledge an additional £37 billion of funding for the NHS: Jeremy Corbyn is hoping to improve A&E performances and take one million patients off NHS waiting lists'; in The Independent; 15 May 2017.

'General election: Labour's '£7.4bn a year extra for NHS''; on the BBC; 15 May 2017.

Jessica Elgot & Peter Walker's 'Labour looks at new tax bracket for those earning £80k-£150k: Shadow chancellor says highest increases would be for top 1%, and only top 5% of earners would face rise'; in The Guardian; 7 May 2017.

'Labour manifesto: Extra £48.6bn in tax revenue to fund pledges'; on the BBC; 16 May 2017.

Stuart Adam, Andrew Hood, Robert Joyce & David Phillips' 'Labour’s proposed income tax rises for high-income individuals'; from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); 16 May 2017.

Robert Peston's 'Will Labour end the benefits freeze? Corbyn says yes - and no'; on ITV; 16 May 2017.

'A Co-operative Plan for a Britain Where Power and Wealth are Shared: The Co-operative Party’s policy platform for the 2017 General Election'; from the Co-operative Party; as of 16 May 2017.

Paul Mason's 'It’s now clear what Corbynism represents – so what does the centre do next? Labour’s new manifesto is popular on the doorsteps and in the polls, and may accelerate the creation of a new party and new alliances'; in The Guardian; 15 May 2017.

'General Election 2017 - Housing: There is a progressive consensus that Britain needs more homes and more protection for renters'; in The Alternative; 15 May 2017.

General Election 2017 - Housing: There is a progressive consensus that Britain needs more homes and more protection for renters

The future of housing in Britain is a key issue, for which the main parties rarely have a convincing answer.

It is not an overstatement to say that housing is in crisis in Britain. The housing and homelessness charity Shelter are stern in their assessment of a Britain that is short on affordable housing and facing the rise in precariousness and powerlessness that follows.

The Conservative approach to the crisis has been half-measures and pointed fingers. Despite the facts not agreeing with them, the Tory government has insisted it has built more houses than Labour - placing the present problems at their opponents feet.

Meanwhile their own response has amounted to mostly shoring up their own supporters. Disproportionately to the disadvantage of the least well off, the Tories have raided the public sector- councils and housing association - for more homes to prop up a housing market reluctant to build.

The Conservatives continue to make promises. In the Autumn, as they acknowledged they have failed to meet targets, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid announced plans for a mix of funds and loans to get back on target.

Theresa May has announced, during the current campaign, that new land will be made available for Councils to build social housing - though, they'll still be sold off after ten to fifteen years. And the plan isn't new, just a re-announcement of previous spending commitments.

It is painfully unclear that Conservative plans will not do much of anything to affect the fundamental problems.

What is clear is that there is a progressive consensus to be found on housing. Across the Left and Centre, there is a realisation that - at the raw heart of the matter - more homes need to be built. There is no escaping from that reality.

The Labour response has been to pledge a million new homes over five years. The plan accounts for half of those to be council and housing association homes, to be made available for affordable rents. The pledge was accompanied by a commitment to ensuring more secure tenancies and end bad letting practices.

The Liberal Democrats by comparison have pitched for 300,000 new homes a year across the next parliament. As is becoming more common, they have combined this with a plan to allow councils to levy penalty fees on absentee landlords with empty homes - up to 200% of council tax.

This theme of building homes, tackling bad landlording and taking on the problem of empty homes is also present in the Green Party's policy announcements. Their proposals pretty much match Labour's step for step and include the Lib Dems focus on bringing empty homes back into use.

However, what no party has offered is a concrete means of dealing with the fundamental problem: a 259% rise in house prices over just twenty years. The standard response has been simply to increase the sheer number of houses - hoping that increasing market supply alone will drive down prices.

Certainly, making rental more secure, longer termed and protected from bad practices - like hiked rents or exorbitant fees - more widely available will go some way to providing viable alternatives to home ownership, that will increase competitive pressure.

But at some point, some party or movement will have to address the fundamental roadblock to housing reform in Britain: the interests of homeowners, landlords, developers and the government being so closely aligned and deeply invested in the continued increase in property values as to form a cartel.

This problem goes deep into the heart of Britain's economic system and find there problems that are supposed to be extinct.

The rentier - the magnate who makes their unearned income from rent - is seen as an issue of the early twentieth and even nineteenth century, but remains a problem in modern Britain.

It was one of the things that originally led liberals to coalesce into a party to fight: the power of aristocratic landlords who maintained their wealth and privilege on the back of the work of others. Their answer was to fight for earned income to replace rent income.

Yet conservatism adapted and capitalism has kept alive at its core a rentier class, that finds disproportionate advantage. The continued prevalence of inherited wealth and the huge privilege afforded to wealth, allows a class to virtually exclude others from access to one of the most basic needs: shelter.

Addressing the grip of this cartel just simply isn't in the interest of a government - not least conservatives. In Britain, so much has been staked on 'financialisation' and that investment speculation is deeply entwined with property.

But what is the answer? The strong or expansive economies of countries like Germany and Singapore both have huge public ownership of land and housing and in the last twenty years have not seen prices rise like they have amidst Britain's private finance and privatisation boom.

The progressive parties are all putting forward plans that will be an improvement upon Conservative policy and there is real and meaningful overlap in their ideas. They recognise that Britain needs more decent affordable homes and renters need protection. That alone is enough to vote for progressive parties on the issue of housing, over Tories that raid social housing to feed an out of control market.

But the big answers on housing have yet to make their way into the party mainstream in Britain.

Housing White Paper: Government looks only to patch over the Housing Crisis

Last week the government released its "fixing our broken housing market" white paper, with which it promised reforms that would fight market failures with radical measures.

Radical measures are certainly needed. Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis, were the poor and young are excluded, from both ownership and rental, by housing shortages and by what effectively amounts to a self-enriching cartel.

In terms of the shortage, Shelter have said that the gap between housing need and supply is around 150,000 a year, with some estimates putting the shortfall over the past twenty years at 2.5m (Griffiths & Jefferys, 2013; Halligan, 2017).

In his statement, acknowledging that the house price to average income ratios have gone up from 3.5 to 7.5 in the past twenty years, including under the Coalition, Communities Minister Sajid Javid told the House that the government recognised that the drain on people's income that housing - even rental - had become was a huge barrier to social progress (Javid, 2017).

But the excuses crept in quickly: claims that Labour didn't build enough and councils have ducked decisions and don't plan properly. There were also promises, of transparency, of faster construction, of coordinated public investments, to encourage greater innovation by opening the building market beyond the ten companies that build 60% of homes.

Renters were also paid some attention. Javid promised to promote longer-term tenancies, to tackle unfair terms and to improve safeguards - on top of the previous promises to ban agent's fees.

Now, there are two levels of critique for holding a government white paper to account. The first is the thing it promises. Does it contain a good policy? The second is delivery. Does the government have a record of following through and will it do so this time?

As with the government's prized right-to-buy scheme, the government's white paper does not seem to be offering solutions sufficient to deal with the full scale of the problem, although the government at least seems to recognise that there is a serious problem (Easton, 2017). There are some positive steps - if there is follow through. But it all seems like wallpapering over the cracks.

Meanwhile, the government seems content to continue feeding the beast. As when it chose to drain social housing to make up its for sale housing numbers, now it seems intent to just keep things afloat a little longer - build a few more houses, a bit more quickly, with a bit more market competition - and leave the new ideas to someone else.

All of this just shovels more of the UK's precious resources into an extremely greedy fire - as demonstrated by the government pitching houses costing £250,000, even after discounts, for households with combined incomes under £90,000, as 'affordable homes' (BBC, 2017).

As for delivery? In the past six years in office, the house price to average income ratio has continued to grow and the overall increase in housing costs have been extreme (Full Fact, 2015). Waiting lists for social housing remain long and even rental costs, both private and social, are becoming unsustainable.

During the Labour dominated late 1990s and 2000s, house building was usually between 150,000-200,000, falling to between 100,000-150,000 in the later art of the decade before the Conservatives came to office.

The Conservatives made no promises on housebuilding in 2010 and didn't break that pattern. In 2014 there were 125,000 new homes. By 2016, a corner had perhaps been turned. Javid claimed 190,000 were built last year. However, homelessness has also risen sharply, under the impact of private rents and cut to welfare support (BBC, 2017{2}).

In 2015 the Conservatives promised around 475,000 new homes by 2020 - of which about 55,000 a year were to be affordable homes and 40,000 a year were to be starter homes (CPA, 2015). Yet the number of households, by the government's own statistics, is set to rise by more than double their promised housebuilding targets (Full Fact, 2015). And the promised ban on agent's fees has yet to materialise (Collinson & Elgot, 2017).

Neither David Cameron's ministry nor Theresa May's have acted decisively on housing. Both governments plans patched things over and kept just enough houses in circulation on property markets to keep key property owning voters happy.

The reality is that a Conservative government cannot deal with the essential problem: that a cartel of property owners, developers and investors can only justify obscene investments with ever increasing property values and rents - that are utterly unsustainable.

How can a Conservative say no to these people? Well-to-do home owners, profit-making businesses and financial investors? That is basically a list of the key Conservative supporters. So for now, all there will be is a white paper to patch things up.

Social Security: Winter is coming and the Government appears content to leave the ramparts unguarded

A homeless encampment in Manchester last year, one of the signs of the growing strain on Britain's social security safety net. People are falling through the system into poverty.

The first signs are appearing of the hard times ahead, forecast by the Autumn Statement. It has been less than a week since the Government announced its budget priorities and already it is under pressure over the gaps in social security created by the lower funding brought by six years of austerity.

People are falling through the cracks because, from social care to free school meals, the safety net is becoming porous. In some areas, people don't know they have a right to support and in others there simply aren't places for them in programmes.

At the root of these issues is funding. In their quixotic crusade to tackle public spending, that they sees as an unnecessary waste, the Conservatives have chipped, slashed and removed whole sections of Britain's social security safety net.

As Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has pointed out, the Conservatives have slashed spending even where spending would ultimately save far more money in the long run than cuts will. The onward rumbling housing crisis has proven particularly expensive for the Government.

As a result of a failure to build new social housing, and the determined sell-off of present stock, far more is spent on Housing Benefit to keep people in more expensive, and often less satisfactory, private rented accommodation.

Investing funds in social housing could, in fact, drastically reduce the housing benefit bill, by perhaps billions, all while tackling one of Britain's a major infrastructural problem. The key that the Conservative seem to be missing is the vital role to be played by smart spending.

The Conservatives have certainly tried to portray themselves as embracing the idea of smart spending. When it comes to funds, the Government has been keen to say that it has extended certain tax raising powers to local government to cover the increased cost of social care. And the Prime Minister continues to repeat the '£10bn for the NHS' figure.

Yet their claims are belied by reality. The £10bn figure has been debunked and its continued use criticised. The extra funding for social care, the Social Care Precept - that lets local government keep a 2% greater share council tax receipts - has been dismissed as wholly inadequate. The Chancellor pledge in invest in infrastructure resulted in just 40,000 new homes being promised.

There is even talk today of the pension age being pushed back again. Even as the living standards of all workers, especially the most vulnerable, continue to fall, the Government still whittles away at the public sector and turns to the market.

Winter is coming and the Government appears content to leave the ramparts unguarded - believing perhaps that people should secure their own fences in a market for social security. That is a plan that progressives should comprehensively reject.

Prioritising opportunities for the affluent and thrusting over security for the vulnerable isn't just unethical and economically unsound, its also a social disaster waiting to happen.

It is the very thing that feeds the desperation, that in turn feeds the far right. The neoliberalism of the Centre-Right is laying the shaky foundations of its own collapse.

So what does that leave for progressives to do? Yanis Varoufakis has put it the simplest: first, stabilise and save what we can of value in the present system, and second, develop a real, working and unifying alternative. The costs of letting the house of cards fall - personally, socially, economically - are just far too high to do otherwise.

Autumn Statement: Austerity hasn't worked, yet Chancellor's response is much smaller than Britain's big problems demand

House building pledge typifies problems with Chancellor Philip Hammond's Autumn Statement - it's too little action to tackle a much bigger problem. Photograph: Regency Houses from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

John McDonnell, the Labour Shadow Chancellor, described the Autumn Statement as a budget that does not make up for six wasted years. That after all of the sacrifice, over more than half a decade, despite continuous failures, austerity will continue.

That is not an unfair assessment. For this statement, Chancellor Philip Hammond had to juggle the policy inheritance from George Osborne, meeting the promise of Theresa May to help those just getting by, and the economic pressures that are depressing growth, disincentivising investment and pushing up debt.

The result has been a budget statement that sticks close to the status quo, with only some token, already scheduled, easing measures: the personal allowance advancing to £11,500, the 'national' living wage to £7.50, and the welfare withdrawal taper rate down by just two pence in the pound.

The Chancellor's focus remains upon the broader economy, not least with tax cuts continuing for big business as Corporation Tax falls again to 17%. The promise that these subsidies, and policies like the productivity fund, make to people is that if they help the economy, that prosperity will extend to them.

Yet many of the Chancellor's announcements were effectively cancelled out by the facts. He lauded the fact that the UK has its highest employment and lowest unemployment, with a labour market recovery serving everyone. Yet much of the new work has already been reported as being unstable, insecure and precarious.

Despite confirming plans to increase public investment, that comes on the back of years of delayed, stalled or unfunded infrastructure investment plans that have been shifted from announcement to announcement. Meanwhile economic growth is depressed, private investment remains low and debt is still rising.

And on house building, a necessary step to tackling the damaging housing crisis, Hammond has said he will lead a step change in progress on getting them built. Yet his commitment extended to just 40,000 new homes - a long way short of the hundreds of thousands needed, let alone tackle prices and rents escalating beyond what could be credibly referred to as affordable.

While Conservative spokespeople on the cycling news coverage are keen to deflect their failures onto the uncertain circumstances of the times, the reality is that six years of fiscally conservative government has led to a rise in borrowing and a vast increase, even a doubling, of the national debt. Austerity hasn't worked.

Those 'just about managing', as the Tory government labels them, have made huge sacrifices - with less welfare support, with their frontline services embattled, with work that is more precarious for lower pay. But after six years, there is still no pay off. There is no easing. There is still no succour for falling living standards.

If the Government is serious about helping the poorest, the most vulnerable, those most distant from opportunities and living precarious lives, it needs an alternative plan. Fiscal discipline, bringing down debts to reduce the cost of servicing them, is important. But no major economy is working well enough to provide prosperity for the people they're supposed to serve without help from public funds.

Progressives have to construct an alternative plan, that can return more prosperity to the communities that have made big sacrifices to achieve it, but have been alienated from the rewards by austerity. That means getting on with the work that has been put off, like building homes and infrastructure, tackling the cartels that lock communities out of the product of their own resources, with ideas like community energy co-ops, and doing more to support the most vulnerable with healthcare, social care and welfare.

To be 'progressive' is to be hopeful, but progress won't happen by itself: first, the Left has to reach out and connect

Politics returns to Westminster from recess today to a social atmosphere, in Britain and elsewhere, that has become toxic with the noxious fumes spewed by bitterly divided sectarian factions.

Westminster returns from its latest recess today, to a political mood that has rarely been more toxic. Last night's American Presidential debate captured well the noxious fumes, unconstrained by borders or languages, that have poisoned the political atmosphere (Krugman, 2016).

Ignorance and anger abound, and, what's worse, they're being exploited. In the UK, the Conservative Party Conference set official policy at a new low over the weekend when it proposed forcing companies to make open lists of foreign born workers (BBC, 2016; Syal, 2016).

Instead of abolishing ignorance with education and facts - instead of diffusing anger and bringing calm - instead of reasonableness - anger is being inflamed and ignorance reinforced. Politics has lost a sense of reasonableness.

Harsh rhetoric has driven out decency and moderation. Compromise and consensus seem further away than ever. From France to the United States, the political arena has been reduced to a vague political class circling the wagons to see off opponents stoking ignorance and anger to advance their agendas.

All the while, important matters are rendered impossible to address by the partisan impasse created by opposing outrages flung across wide gulfs of understanding between deeply entrenched factions. Whether Europe or America, people need access to affordable healthcare, affordable housing and affordable energy - and all of it stable and sustainable.

For progressives - whether radical or moderate - decency, reasonableness and respect for a plurality of voices aught to be at the heart of any method that pursues those objectives. So for those who cherish these things, the rise of narrow aggressive sectarianism has made politics in 2016 difficult to navigate and hard to bear.

But the only way is forward, and the only way forward is to reach out. At the Compass Progressive Alliance event, journalist John Harris spoke with passion about the people in the abandoned North who voted for Brexit. He said that:

"These are places characterised by fear. Yes, a fear of immigration and the idea that it might make opportunities even more scarce and wages even lower and put more pressure on already way overstretched services. But underlying this all is a very, very cold, frightening really, fear of the future. A fear, when you talk to people, even of tomorrow and next week.

Please, let's not think about the vast majority of the people I've talked about, who voted Leave, as stupid or deluded or bigoted and hateful... If you haven't got a progressive politics which speaks to places which embody the inequality we all fight against, its not worthy of the name."

Before progressives can reach out, they need to understand what it is that they themselves want, and why - and they need to understand what that will mean for the lives and livelihoods of the least well off. And if these two understandings cannot be completely reconciled, work has to begin on a meaningful compromise, on an inclusive next step.

To be progressive is to be hopeful - to believe in human progress, to believe that all people are capable of self-improvement. But it won't occur on its own. It requires defeating neglect with care & listening, ignorance with education & encouragement, despair with hope & opportunity. The norm is adversarial politics that divides to rule. The progressive alternative has to reach for something better.