Around The Houses

Don't stop at taking away the Council Tax exemption. Preceded by the urgently necessary repeal of Tony Blair's provision for planning decisions to be made by officers instead of councillors, planning permission for change of use should be required before a first home could be turned into a second home, before a working family home could be turned into a weekend or holiday retreat.

But those MPs who have been banging on about well-to-do people (although a lot poorer than Conservative MPs) living in council houses, where they might have lived for decades or even all their lives, have been expressing one of the most pernicious myths of our age, namely that public provision is only ever "a safety net for the poor". Once that point has been conceded, they do not intend to stop at housing. So we must not concede the point.

Some of them, including even the Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, have even made the ludicrous statement that council houses were only ever built for the destitute. They were not. They were built for the working class, an entirely different category. And even then, they were never supposed to be exclusive to one section of society. From time to time, one hears the eye-wateringly ridiculous statement, always uttered as if it were self-evident, that no one should be living in a council house if they have a job!

David Cameron bought a third house which he did not really need, but that is his business. It is not even our business that he took out a mortgage when he could perfectly easily have afforded to buy outright. But what is our business is that he charged that mortgage to us. When, say, his children leave home, or perhaps he becomes even richer than he already is, will there be any chance that he might be evicted, and his publicly funded house allocated to someone else? If not, then why should that be done to anyone else?