• IN the 1970s I had to travel to Portugal before I saw people begging on the streets. Now, I only have to walk down Stroud Green Road to see evidence of real housing need.

But we are assured that an increase in housing supply will enable everyone to afford a home. This theory might apply to some commodities, under certain conditions, but not housing in 2017.

Our neoliberal governments have infected our basic need for homes with, first, their desire for a “property-owning democracy” and then for us to acquire property assets to use as collateral for further debt with which to fuel the economy and keep them in power.

Since the ’70s those same governments have allowed banksters to create the majority of new money, not to risk on manufacturing, agriculture or even house-building, but primarily for the purchase of existing housing.

In consequence, house prices have risen without the accompanying increase in productivity and the distributed incomes that would have generated genuine affordability.

A buying frenzy has been encouraged, a race to get on the property-asset ladder while the bubble is still inflating. Dropping interest rates, in a misguided attempt to encourage the sort of investment that would actually increase wealth, has only served to divert the savings of “the haves” into property.

The primary purpose of London’s housing is now to act as a treasure chest. Rather than blame the free market, government has put up a smokescreen of “initiatives”, including the concept of so-called “affordable housing”, that do nothing to address the underlying problem, which is their failure to manage the money supply.

CHRIS GRAHAM
Tollington Park, N4