GOVERNMENT plans to ramp up council house rents come close on the heels of David Cameron’s declaration of war on affordable housing at Tory Party conference.

Like most of the rest of our Prime Minister’s speech, the reality — that he would be preventing local authorities from requiring new builds to include affordable rented accommodation — was dolled up to look like its opposite, an apparent drive to make buying a home easier — though housing charity Shelter was able to swiftly point out that his “affordable” homes will be beyond the means of 90 per cent of wage-earners.

The idea was presumably to promote home ownership. Or at least to present the appearance of promoting home ownership, which has actually fallen to its lowest level for three decades as spiralling costs price the majority out of the market.