I’ve whinged far too often about the fact that housing never seems to get the political attention it deserves. This is partly to do with the way housing shows up in polls – as Ipsos MORI’s Ben Page spelled out here recently. Although every MP’s post bag is full of their constituents’ housing problems, these problems are experienced by each family as theirs alone – and are treated accordingly by politicians.
But politics seems to be finally waking up … Read more
Too often reflections on our disparate housing market focus on a crude north-south divide, of rocketing house prices in the south, and decline in the north. Just a couple of weeks ago Shelter was campaigning in Liverpool, and our campaigns team heard from hundreds of the city’s residents just how awful their housing situation is. IPPR’s report on housing in Bradford shows just how complex a city’s housing can be, and we are pleased to feature a guest blog … Read more
There are local and mayoral elections across the United Kingdom today, so we are delighted to have a timely guest blog from the esteemed pollster Ben Page, Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI, writing about the challenges and paradoxes of housing as a personal and political issue. Over the coming weeks we’ll be reflecting on how housing has faired in the elections where Shelter has been seeking to get housing on the political agenda. But for now, over to … Read more
Baby boomers have had a bit of an image problem lately. The ‘boomer’ generation born in the post-war period is (by and large) prospering after a prolonged period of economic growth (data geeks might want to refer to this (£) fascinating graph by the FT).
Younger generations, meanwhile, are increasingly fed up: fewer good jobs and pensions, and an unaffordable housing market that holds them back.*
It’s almost universally acknowledged that soaring house prices played a major role … Read more
As the hype around the government’s NewBuy scheme rumbles on, it’s worth pausing for a moment to contemplate why owning a home is such a national obsession, and consequently, why politicians always look to home ownership when they want to deliver a package that plays to the aspirations of Middle England.
To my mind, the real question is: what is the alternative to owning a home? For an increasing number of middle-income families their only option is to rent … Read more
A week tomorrow, the Chancellor will unveil the country’s budget, and no doubt George Osborne will be thinking about ways to help out the ‘squeezed middle’. This group, made up of people on less than average wages but not the very poorest, has become a hot political topic.
Housing must be a key part of this debate. The idea of being stuck in the middle is a depressingly familiar story when you think about housing. Want to … Read more
The growth of the private rented sector and the changing demographics of people who rent from a private landlord are widely considered to be the most significant changes in the housing market in recent decades.
Almost every time I look at the national picture through the government’s English Housing Survey I find another angle that sheds further light on the growth of the sector. Most recently I realised that there were 400,000 additional households with children in the private in … Read more