Thanks for sharing Duncan, much appreciated!

Full episode here: open.spotify.com/episode/0cKb...

We were discussing my book, Homesick, which is out now here: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/home...

In other words: maybe if we'd not cut the funding to build new social housing, we wouldn't now be handing billions to some of the country's worst private landlords to house the homeless families who can't get a social home

Jess and I will be sharing a platform to discuss both books on October 23 at Pages of Hackney, if anyone can make it along!

Also, since you've gotten to the bottom of this thread, you might like to know that I had a book on housing out last week, which contains a lot of This Sort of Thing! You can get it here:

uk.bookshop.org/p/books/home...

Many of the flats we get from this will be sold off to landlord investors and rented out, because that's what the housing market does in big cities! This is not a new policy position, and certainly not a return to the transformative post-war years. Those days are gone (ends)

It will produce the same results: in some places, probably a good boost to the local economy that brings about some positive change - albeit as a side effect to private sector profit. In others, the opportunity for developers to use the state balance sheet to finance private profit

So what this really represents is the same sort of public sector support for private development that pops up in every other fiscal event. Some degree of state support for existing areas of private sector development, to help them overcome blockages and get building. We've been doing this for years