Today's news that the Conservative Party is seeking to resurrect Right to Buy (R2B) illustrates that party's inability to see beyond the type of myopic asset-stripping we've become used to.
With the likelihood of private investment in house building under the Conservatives' watch resembling anything other than a pool of stagnation for the foreseeable future, I am staggered to hear Housing Minister Mark Prisk MP claiming that R2B will once again teach people that "Ambition pays..." or that "they didn't just pass their property onto their children but their aspiration."
I grew up in a big family, I was the eldest of six, my dad drove trucks for a living and my mum was full time at home. We lived in council housing and it was that access to good quality, low cost housing that made the difference between surviving or not for my family. It's no exaggeration to say the benefit system was not as it is now. The Family Allowance; a forerunner of child benefit, was in place to top up our meagre resources and a home let from the private sector would have taken food from the table and the clothes from our backs.
Fast forward to the 1980s and I was fresh out of university, watching the then Conservative government introducing right to buy. It was aspirational; the intention being to create a property owning democracy and the discounts provided were attractive.
However, the receipts went largely to central government and the stock of housing, particularly for families, reduced. In meeting an aspiration the government had very effectively undermined the position of those who rent.
Later in the 80s, as a social worker I was confronted with the shortages that this and increasing demand for rented property created when I tried to find homes to rent for people with learning disabilities leaving long stay hospitals. It proved impossible to meet this need from council stock and we were forced into more costly provision from the private sector.
There is nothing wrong with aspiration. It is something that I believe in strongly; there is nothing wrong with the aspiration to own your own home. However, it is not acceptable to meet this aspiration by denying the rights of those who must rent.
There are people on the waiting lists of councils who are living in costly unsuitable accommodation and are awaiting the opportunity for access to low cost and good quality housing. It is hard to see how they will move up the waiting list if the housing stock they are seeking to access is ever diminishing.
I understand that the receipts from the current right to buy scheme will be retained by local authorities and can be used to drive the development of new housing. However, there are better ways of funding the building of new homes for rent.
On a final ironic note, my organisation has a number of houses in its portfolio that are ex council stock. These were bought from auction, the shattered remnants of aspiration. They are back in use now, for the purpose for which they were built; rented, social housing.