Buy-to-let landlords hoarding properties harms the whole system. Labour would benefit from explaining this to voters
“If only under-30s [voted],” wrote the architectural historian and activist Owen Hatherley, reflecting on the results of the 2019 election, “there would be no Conservative MPs anywhere in Britain.” But, if only the over-70s voted, “there would be Tory MPs in every constituency apart from south Wales, Merseyside, the city of Manchester and inner London”. The story of British electoral politics over the past decade has been defined by the seeming replacement of class by age as the best indicator of how people vote.
The most striking explanation of why younger voters tilt so hard to the left (and older voters so hard to the right) is our system of home ownership. Housing, particularly in the populous south, is exorbitantly expensive and England’s social housing stock is at a 70-year low. All our lives are also shaped by the legacy of the Conservatives’ signature housing policy, right to buy.
