On the Andrew Marr show yesterday, the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid suggested that the government should ‘sensibly borrow more money’ and take advantage of the ‘record low-levels’ of interest rates in order to tackle the UK’s housing crisis. He added that the lack of affordable housing was the ‘biggest barrier to social progress in our country today’ and that such measures would go some way to re-balancing social inequality.
Javid’s remarks also highlighted another crisis: that of the identity of the Tory party. It is true that the UK currently faces a severe housing shortage with the number of homes being built falling far short of the 200,000 target which is generally recommended by housing experts. However, Javid’s insistence that the Conservative government could easily borrow more money reinforces the notion that austerity was no more than an ideological experiment rather than an economical necessity.
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