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Despite widespread recognition that housing is a serious social concern, policy responses have tended to be inadequate. After a brief review of the magnitude of the problem, this paper focuses on recent experience in the UK where, during a period of political volatility, housing has been the subject of significant government interventions, which in turn have provoked noteworthy reactions. However, the paper argues that all current mainstream housing policy proposals are limited by their adherence to the failed market model. Instead, a more radical agenda is proposed which draws on the UK's successful record of public housing. The paper summarises some of the key Conservative government housing policies since 2016 - including the influence of the Grenfell fire - and discusses the Labour Party's response. It particularly critiques the policies of London Mayor Sadiq Khan which relegate traditional council housing in favour of more income-targeted provision. A high-profile report by the housing charity Shelter is also considered because of its apparent reluctance to include explicit reference to council housing within its recommendations, at a time when, it is argued, there is renewed interest in non-market housing alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing is one of the defining social policy issues of our time. There is growing recognition that the housing market is failing and causing widespread damage, but alternatives struggle against deep-rooted capitalist norms and the perceived shortcomings of previous attempts to promote non-market housing. However, despite being a huge concern for millions of people, housing tends to operate below the mainstream political radar, as was demonstrated again by the December 2019 UK general election. This paper argues that a new agenda for public housing is gaining support and can overcome these obstacles, particularly by aligning itself to shifting lifestyle patterns and the urgency of combating climate change, thus enacting a true Right to the City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The May 2010 election of a Conservative-dominated UK coalition government unleashed an unprecedented austerity drive under the auspices of ‘deficit reduction’ in the wake of the global financial crisis. This article focuses on housing policy to show how the ‘cuts’ are being used as an ideological cover for a far-reaching, market-driven restructuring of social welfare policy that amounts to a return of what Ralph Miliband called ‘class war conservatism’. We revisit the main ideological contours and materialist drivers of Thatcherism as a hegemonic strategy, discussing the central role played by housing privatization in the neoliberal project that was continued, but not completed, by New Labour. We then discuss the Coalition’s assault on the housing welfare safety net it inherited, arguing this has rapidly shut down alternative directions for housing and represents a strategic intervention designed to unblock and expand the market, complete the residualization of social housing and draw people into an ever more economically precarious housing experience in order to boost capitalist interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]