Editor

I have previously said that doubling the council tax onsecond homes is divisive, but it is also an inadequate way to fund the scale of social housing required.

Charlie Evans, Conservative candidate, thinks higher wages would help local people, but like ‘help to buy’ that would simply increase prices. Everyone endorses a housing market that is presumed to be satisfying the laws of supply and demand,when in fact it is a rigged market.

It is rigged ideologically, as revealed by Nick Clegg, that Osborne and Cameron saw council houses as breeding Labour voters. It is currently rigged financially by quantitative easing (electronic money), which after the 2008 crash was claimed to be intended for economic investment, but now is brazenly admitted to have fuelled asset prices, housing in particular.

The current removal of stamp duty up to £600,000, now extended to June, has further fuelled housing prices, and these all help to create great numbers of property millionaires, whilst the masses struggle to keep their high rented roofs over their heads.

Which is another unspoken reason for the dearth of social housing, that a large national programme would upset the ‘buy to let’ lobby, big time.

All this is then continually fed by the unhealthy London market, attracting ultra-rich global buyers, creating the periodic ripple effect that penetrates to all regions, further distorting the price of the entire housing stock.

Roger Louvet Porthmadog

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