• As ever, lots of stuff in the press about the housing crisis. Lots about homelessness:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/13/tories-homelessness-crisis-rough-sleeping-universal-credit

    About housebuilding:

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/27/sadiq-khan-to-raise-target-for-affordable-housing-in-london

    I'm sure Khan's intentions are very good, but the problem with this stuff is always that elsewhere than London lots of homes stay empty, property is very cheap, business investment is low, so why should so much activity happen in London? It's all very well to talk about 'affordable' but since that still means very high prices and profits, all I can see that this would do would be to continue overheating the housing market. Homes for social rent are currently a policymaker's pipe dream, at least until a new government comes in, so I think that any effort to further concentrate population in London is wrong-headed. There are plenty of places that are haemorrhaging people because of the uneven distribution of economic activity which should be supported by government policy to achieve investment there. Obviously, as Mayor London Khan is in a bind, because he has to promote London, so I don't blame him. I just think the whole direction/absence of direction or strategy is wrong.

About