Conservative commitments - 6, 6 fails

6.     Build 200,000 starter homes

A laudable goal in some ways, but the devil is in the detail. Why starter homes? Where will they be built? To what quality will they be built? Who will pay for them? This policy is a nothing policy. It’s an aspiration with no substance, and the manifesto gives no further detail, actually describing it as an ambition rather than a promise. Relaxing planning laws is not an option, because the Conservatives don’t want to annoy the NIMBYs who care only about their own house price, not the national or local good. If it were an option, how would quality be ensured?

New homes sounds good to potential buyers, but we already have lots of empty homes up north. I need a flat in central London close to work. Building a house in Kent for me isn’t good enough.

I could go on. This isn’t a proposal to fund high-quality construction in high-demand areas. It’s an aspiration intended to win votes while having no substance at all. Housing is a complex issue and there is no simple solution to the crisis. This policy addresses none of the concerns at all. It is merely intended to look like it.

While I’m here, I also need to address ‘help-to-buy’, another housing scheme that the manifesto promises to extend. Mortgage guarantees are ridiculous market distortions that any economic right-winger should abhor. If banks think the risk is too great without a guarantee, then that person probably shouldn’t have a mortgage! Guaranteeing a mortgage is basically a government subsidy to the banks; too many guaranteed mortgages will eventually default, as the banks’ careful risk analysis shows, the buyers will have paid mortgage interest for nothing, and the government will pick up the tab so that the banks don’t lose.

This is offering to make buyers feel good now in full knowledge that the buyers will actually lose out along with taxpayers. If the Conservatives think that banks’ risks analyses are wrong, that shows a distrust of big business curiously at odds with their usual attitudes.

Help-to-buy is a scheme designed to inflate house prices by helping people get into debts that they cannot afford. It will directly contribute to any future crash, and if it ‘helps’ enough people it will directly cause one.

In housing, where one might expect the Conservatives’ free-market economics to bring some sense to a distorted market, the Conservatives’ dedication to wealthy landowners actually makes them promise to distort the market further, in conflict with economic sense and their own principles.

The housing crisis is an enormous crisis, equivalent to roughly £100,000-£120,000 (estimates vary) transfer of wealth from the young (poor renters) to the old (rich house-owners). It is the single biggest injustice in the country, it is caused by market distortions that right-wing economics would usually hate, and the Conservatives are especially dedicated to making it worse.