The housing crisis is being blamed by senior Conservative MP Michael Gove for the big losses suffered by the Tories at the local elections last week, with the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Greens making gains as the results were declared on Friday.
Prime minister Boris Johnson accepted it was a “tough night” for the Conservatives after Labour took control of Westminster City Council for the first time since its creation in 1964 and Wandsworth Council for the first time in 44 years.
Labour also won a majority on the new Cumberland Council, with the Tory leader of Carlisle Council calling on the prime minister to resign over the result – locally and nationally.
But Gove, the levelling up and housing minister, believes that “removing the prime minister now would be bonkerooney”, and instead believes that fixing the housing crisis holds the key to turning around his party’s fortunes.
According to Gove, falling levels of home ownership were a major factor in the Conservatives’ heavy local election losses, with significantly more needing to be done to get people onto the housing ladder.
“There is a particular challenge for us in London and I think that challenge in London relates to … homeownership,” Gove told The Sunday Telegraph.
“That’s one lesson that I would draw at this stage,” he added. “The other one is that the Labour Party doesn’t seem to have made anything like the progress outside of London, that you would expect an opposition to do if it was on course for victory.”
Home ownership has fallen from 51% in 1989 to 28% in 2019 among 25 to 34-year-olds.
“I think that for young people in London, there is a responsibility on the incumbent government to address some of the factors that have made it more difficult for them to own their own home,” Gove said.
He added: “There are people who are perfectly capable of servicing a mortgage who are paying more in rent than they would for their mortgage. That is wrong.”
The government’s plans to increase the supply of homes form part of its Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will be unveiled in the Queen’s speech next week.
They have no idea what to fix let alone how to fix it. If they did they’d realise they,as a government, can’t afford the solution Additionally the 2nd home owners and property tax avoiders would once again ensure any such project is buried.
Low interest rate economic policy will defeat any attempt to resolve the housing crisis in a way that will placate the voters Mr. Gove wants to attract; the people locked out of home ownership by 2nd home owners, portfolio landlords and short let owners.
Interest rates are finally beginning to rise, 8 years later than they should, but the sort of levels they’d have to be raised to in order to impact the housing market will cripple a government that’s borrowed far more than it should to avoid the recession/s Mr. Brown set in motion all those years ago.
Taxation and tight planning controls are possibly the only way to deliver what Mr. Gove is after but that’s all a bit too red for a blue government.
As I’ve been saying for well over 10 years, housing needs to be an apolitical department that’s able to plan beyond “Boris might call a snap election in the autumn” Whichever party is in power they shouldn’t play politics with people’s homes.
This very article is evidence housing is a vote winner/ loser, it should not be that way.
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Exactly this
Low interest rate policy as a way for short term wealth and happy voters has been irresponsible and now we are paying the price. Yes the pandemic and Ukraine have not helped, but this has been a long time coming
The problem with fixing the price of housing is that the majority of the population owns a house, in if they fix the problem, they lose out, so everyone is more than happy to just throw absolutely ridiculous schemes like help to buy at the market, or lower interest rates a little, so everyone gets a bit more money and can afford housing again, and let house prices go to a unsustainable level
We are at stage where this has been exhausted, and now this poor generation of first time buyers that need all the help in the world just to buy, and that has had this rhetoric that “house prices never go down” are going to realize that if you buy a house you can’t afford without a 20% help to buy equity loan, a 40+ year mortgage, and then your interest rate doubles, or even triples on your mortgage, and then realize that because no one can afford that house at that price anymore, that they may been in negative equity too
For too long the government has been overleveraging themselves, and the last generation has been reaping the rewards of lowering interest rates giving them massive gains on their property, and brushing the problem under the carpet, because hey, we’re all getting rich right?
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“I think that for young people in London, there is a responsibility on the incumbent government to address some of the factors that have made it more difficult for them to own their own home.” Gove said.
I’m glad you realise that. So what you going to do about the housing crisis?
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So ‘Eye’ has moved (temporarily) from adverts to party politics editorials now.
No government has got its act together on keeping pace with housing. You the tax payer wouldn’t want the bill.
As for poor show in local elections, no mention of the 49% who didn’t agree with Brexit, Party Gate before Bear gate was announced etc and the cost of living is about to go up. Maybe that has something to do with it for an incumbent party? Notably most flocked to the Lib Dems who never really get a look in at Westminster, so looking more like a public ticking off.
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Naughty step for you WT!
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I had really credited Michael Gove with far more Intelligence than he deserves, obviously !
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