What just happened in Newington Green?

eh? Isn't that exactly what Shelter is saying? That house prices have risen independently of inflation; unlike bananas and so on? Which they mention as a handy way of illustrating just how much higher house prices have risen? Their point is that housing is as much a need as schooling and health care - or roads, public transport or the police force - but it has been left almost solely to the private sector ever since Thatcher with the result that far too many people do not have, and likely will never have, adequate housing. And, something Tories curiously never point out, others have made small fortunes simply by living in a house for a few years; isn't this the sort of un-earned money, and the sense of entitlement to money, that you normally deprecate?

No, they specifically claim that "If everything had risen at the same rate as housing our lives would be untenable." which is nonsense.

Making a fortune from living in a house is silly, but does anyone really get to enjoy that money? You would have to sell your home to realise the profit, and you will then have to buy another home to live in. When you retire and downsize maybe you can, but is that any different from any other type of long-term investment, such as a pension?

I don't think the lack of adequate housing is a problem caused by Thatcher introducing right-to-buy. There were (and are) whole estates of inadequate council housing too, and before the war, all those inadequate slums. Far too many people have always been denied access to decent housing - it's the one bit of the stats I had no argument with.