Housing: Rich and Poor (Newsnight)

According to the Tory chair of the all-party committee on housing, trying to house everyone is very difficult, very complex, very, very, very difficult. He knows because he once worked for a charity that tried to house people. And it was very, very, very difficult. We heard all about it on Newsnight. And it was very, very, very difficult.

Earlier in the programme, a Tory ex-pensions minister explained that the consequence of economic policy (the banks apparently, not the government) was that the rich had got richer and the poor poorer. She didn't quite put it like that. She said the policy had favoured those who held assets (the rich) and had been hard on those who had no assets. She described this as a 'side effect'.


Anyway, trying to house everyone, is very, very, very difficult.

(At the height of council house building in the 50s, they were building over 250,000 council houses a year.)
(The glory of the council house sell-offs was alluded to as a policy which had helped home ownership.)