We thought this interesting from The Observer:

Most, for sure, would never be in the market in the places where oligarchs and kleptocrats like to buy, such as Knightsbridge, Kensington, parts of Highgate, and in suburban gated communities such as St George’s Hill near Weybridge, Surrey. But, as Transparency International has also argued, there has been a ripple effect: if billionaires buy in Kensington, then slightly less loaded bankers start to look in marginally less expensive districts, where the most successful professionals might be pushed further afield, and so on, until first-time buyers in outer boroughs find that their studio flats are a notch more pricey.

Increasing the demand for housing, at any point in the price hierarchy, increases prices at all points of the price hierarchy.

Interesting, no? For that also means that increasing the supply of housing, at any point in the price hierarchy, will reduce the price of housing at all points in the price hierarchy.

That is, solving Britain’s housing crisis - assuming there is that thing that needs a solution - is not a matter of having to build “affordable” housing, or rental, or council, or state, or social, it’s a matter of simply building more housing.

Which is good, because we know how to do that. Free the market from the constraints that slow down and prevent the building of houses people want to live in, where they’d like to live, and the market will indeed provide. As happened the last time we did have a free market in housing in Britain, in the 1930s. When private housebuilding rose to shave 300,000 units a year to serve a markedly smaller population.

So, now that The Observer - and therefore all right thinking liberals and progressives - are on board with the basic economics we can get on with the solution. Blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up, bang! Kablooie!

So, having sorted housing out what do we do for the rest of the week?