A useful guide to why British housing is so appalling

Just consider the point being made here. Savour the flavour of it:

Tory areas given six times bigger increase in housing targets than Labour regions

Almost half of the Cabinet – nine out of the 22 members who represent seats in England – have had their building goals reduced

It’s possible to take issue with the plans themselves of course, targets have been raised in the North, where fewer people wish to live, and lowered in the SE, where more people do. Well done planners, eh? But savour. The new housing is to be dumped on the areas of those just out of power and the areas of those just in power are to be unblessed by more housing:

Tory councils have seen their house building targets increase by six times more than Labour ones, analysis by The Telegraph reveals.

On Tuesday Angela Rayner unveiled sweeping reforms to planning rules, including mandatory housing targets imposed on councils and a new algorithm to calculate them.

Analysis shows that, as a result, across the 55 Tory-controlled English councils which have planning powers, targets have been increased by 43.3 per cent.

Yet across the 121 council areas run by Labour, many of which are in the biggest cities, the upward revision has been just 7.2 per cent.

The political claim is that housing is a bad thing to be foisted upon enemies. That’s why that new housing - to be delivered by central planning - is being foisted upon the areas of enemies.

Which is that very good indeed explanation of why British housing is so terrible. Cramped, our new builds are the smallest in Europe, no one at all is prepared to allow anyone to build houses in Britain that Britons would like to live in where Britons would like to live. Why? Because the entire political establishment - both those doing this foisting and those complaining about being foisted upon - believe that housing is a bad thing. Clearly and obviously they do by their actions and complaints.

Houses are Bad, M’Kay?

What other explanation do we need for why British housing is bad?

Tim Worstall