Quote of the day; spoken like a true tory

Readers might like to take note (or even join in) the debate over at Capitalists@Work on renting v owning. Now before I go any further, I’ll start by saying I have met and broke bread with their blogger Nick Drew, and he is a nice chap, but he does live in conservative cloud cuckoo land.

Here he replies to a suggestion falling owner occupier numbers will damage traditional conservative interests:

@ Roger, Gradually all those potential Conservative voters will have no dog in the pro Green Belt electoral fight. As the renters get old they will have no assets to raid and their relatives no reason to keep them off the State excellent points – some of the very reasons why conservatives are in favour of property-owning for all the more people that have a committed stake, the better society functions real-estate being static, you have to stick with your neighbours, stand, & fight

To which I replied:

I’m sorry but I think you’re talking absolute cobblers ND, real uber-stereotypical, retired army officer, Telegraph-reading, home counties tory grassroots canvassing, 24 carat gold cobblers. For a start, conservatives reversed all the post war housing policies that helped the UK from 50-odd per cent renting privately to only 10% and the vast majority being owner occupiers. Now the policies are reversed, the so has the trend, it is no coincidence. 

Next, people in secure social housing tenure have just as much interest in getting on with their neighbours, living in a nice place etc. It’s only the short term renters on their 6 month shorthand assured tenancies – brought in by ??? – that have no reason to give a stuff about upkeep. 

Last, but by no means least, you assert society functions better as everyone has ‘committed a stake’. If you were a financial illiterate I could forgive this. But you know more about finance than anyone I’ve ever met bar perhaps one hedge fund manager I bumped into on a train. So you know fine well that ‘society’ has effectively been encouraged to take a massive, collective short sterling / short sterling interest rates / long land prices bet. And being the clever chap you are you know that our political masters have to pander to this bet over and above nigh on everything else. And you choose to call this society functioning better …

I’m really not sure what else can be done to counter such muddle-headed thinking.