Right to buy

Someone brought to my attention that there was a TV programme this week (apparently a repeat) about the 80s property boom:

Cue Christine Hamilton [wife of Neil] for whom, according to the commentary, “principles were never an issue”. She bought her flat for £4,500 and had a buyer lined up the following week for £45,000. It’s now worth £350,000.

I’m a critic of right to buy (not the right to buy council houses per se, but Thatcher’s specific policy), but I never expected to be handed such ammunition. It has nothing to do with Christine Hamilton’s principles – she did the rational thing under the circumstances.

Want to know why social mobility increased in the 80s? Here’s why. Want to know why it has gone in reverse? Same reason. You can only sell off the family silver once. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

Utterly predictable and utterly depressing, not least of all because the entire political establishment now lines up behind this policy.

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