Thatcher's Legacy Part 2

I was just reading about all the people being forced into the rented market. No security of tenure, rapacious landlords and bad accommodation. This is all the consequence of one simple ideological belief, unfortunately bought into by most sides of the centre of politics. That is the concept of the property owning democracy. Like most dangerous ideas, it sounds plausible and good. It might even be possible if the state gave everyone a house to own once they reached 18 years of age.

In the real world a significant number of people will never earn enough to afford to but a house. Mrs Thatcher came up with an equivalent wheeze, give away houses at half price. Notice that it was the ratepayers house she gave away not her own. My view of the legal profession and the House of Lords has never recovered. How come they sanctioned the government giving away something they didn't own? One day some historian might come up with a plausible explanation.

Many years later we see the consequences, not enough reasonably rented properties. The family house that were bought at huge discounts have now been sold off and are rented out, often at exorbitant rents and in some areas to students. So that well built family homes  are now in multiple occupation and families are being made homeless. We are getting back to the days of families having to be put up in bed & breakfast because councils do not have enough housing for the need.

The property owning democracy was always a chimera and by buying into it we gave condemned more and more people to live in substandard housing!