The big debate… Housing is the elephant in the room
I apologise in advance if I upset anyone with my weekly rant… I am going to get VERY political. I am sure many of you watched the first televised debate on Tuesday evening (Sunak v Starmer on ITV). And I am afraid that only my cat (Chairman Meow) was there to listen to my views during the debate, so now you will have to suffer it!
My first observation is that the body language and facial expressions and language used by the PM and my MP (I live in Keir’s constituency) is that they genuinely don’t like one another. Keir got visibly irritated with Sunak droning on about the £2k tax rise… Sunak said “independent Treasury officials” came up with the figure and this is something that the chief Treasury civil servant has denied.
This is all part of “Project Fear” that seems to be the basis on which the Tories are building their election strategy. Sunak used some very provocative language saying that he wants to deport illegal migrants and Starmer wants to set them free… Sunak also repeatedly attacked Starmer on his voting record over the past 14 years and at one point said that Labour had 14 years to come up with policies and haven’t… and then Sunak got terribly upset and cried foul every time Starmer reminded him of the past 14 years and his disastrous predecessors.
Sunak was really not keen to talk about Liz Truss and the disaster she and Kwasi Kwarteng inflicted on the UK economy. Sunak also really didn’t want to talk about the last 14 years and repeatedly insisted on talking about the future… some utopian sunlit uplands where he had nothing to do with the chaos of the past few years.
Speaking of that chaos… Housing is not featuring quite enough for my liking. The reality is borne out by a shocking report from Southwark Council where their delivery of Social Housing has dropped by a staggering 96%. In 2022/23 Southwark Council started on 684 new homes and that dropped to 28 in 2023/24. The reason for this can be traced back to the economic catastrophe under the brief Truss government and under Sunak the lack of leadership on planning and housing has directly led to this.
It is a tragedy for the people of Southwark where 17,000 are on the housing waiting list. These are people who in desperate need of accommodation, often key workers such as NHS staff on low wages. The very same people that worked through the Covid pandemic and Sunak applauded outside 11 Downing Street as Chancellor.
This leaves Labour with a huge headache… How on earth to you fix this? Local Government is in a financial crisis due to the rising cost of their housing responsibilities. Services are being cut everywhere. Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are going to have to find a lot of money and come up with a solution and quick.
More development and S106 money for social housing is one way forward. And if you want advice on that, get in touch with my colleague, Richard Ashdown.
Until next week,
Henry