In our house, Mrs Thatcher gets a reasonably balanced obituary. One persistent negative feature is regret that her policy of selling council houses – which we welcomed — was not balanced by an equivalent house-building programme to ensure a continuity of supply of houses to rent. To me, this was obviously a Treasury red line:
'what's the point of building new houses, Prime Minister, if all you’re going to do is to sell them at a discount?'
Fair point you might think. If so, the consequences seem very costly as we are finding out.
But are they really the consequences? Is the acute shortage of rentable property really down to Mrs T and Treasury mandarins?
Judging by a graph published recently in the Times, the answer's obviously no, as the fall in the building of much needed 'council houses' predated Mrs T's time in government, beginning in the early 1970s. Another Treasury misstep I pressure as money was always short then.
Another feature of the graph is the persistent failure to carry on building up our housing stock since WWII. Is this really down to the planning system, as is usually stated, or is the Treasury behind this as well. I know what I think.
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