The right to buy off the middle class
Milburn believes that, with Blair on side, he can do what he wants. It was meant as a joke, but the press officer (sustainable communities team, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) took my satirical rebuke so seriously that she wrote me an apology.
It was meant as a joke, but the press officer (sustainable communities team, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) took my satirical rebuke so seriously that she wrote me an apology. Thank heavens for the misunderstanding. It resulted in such an emphatic statement of government housing policy that we must assume that the argument about selling off housing association property is over.
Courtesy and clarity combined, confirming that Alastair Campbell's influence on the government information service was not as great as he claimed. "I am sorry if I sounded defensive, but I have to make our position crystal clear on this. Both right to buy and right to acquire schemes are staying exactly the same." No ambiguity there. As we used to say at school: "So now we know."
A number of questions do, however, remain. How did even Alan Milburn - a man with a visceral, if recently acquired, passion for privatisation and the distribution of public services through market mechanisms - hope to justify a policy that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister rightly identified as the antithesis of everything for which a Labour government should stand. "It would offer windfalls to a few, rather than putting help where it is needed," and it "means losing further precious housing needed for the homeless".
Has nobody told the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that homelessness is a blot on the government's record and that reducing the stock of affordable rented properties would increase the number of families in temporary (often a euphemism for squalid) accommodation? Does he not know that the right to buy local authority property has left councils all over the country with only the most decrepit houses and least accessible multi-storey flats and that, because everything they own is falling apart, they cannot afford repair or rehabilitation.
The suspicion must be that he knows - perhaps even cares - but regards the disadvantaged as less important than the crusade to build a land fit for the emergent middle class to live in. He is right to aspire to a national extension of home ownership. It is, for many families, the most desirable way to live. But that does not justify abandoning the unemployed, lone parents and the old-fashioned poor who cannot afford a mortgage.
No doubt Milburn - and the prime minister on whose patronage his career depends - believes that the creation of more owner-occupation, at the expense of housing associations and future tenants, is another way of demonstrating their rejection of Labour values. Not being Labour is again emerging as the underlying principle of the government's re-election strategy. But the way that objective is pursued creates doubts both about Milburn's judgment and the processes by which the prime minister's clique thinks policy should be made.
When Milburn "let it be known" that he intended to include selling housing association property in the 2005 manifesto, did he not think that John Prescott, the responsible minister, might object? Did he not even mention his idea to the deputy prime minister before the leak was contrived? The conflict between the two men illustrates more than Milburn's arrogant belief that, with the prime minister on his side, he can do whatever he chooses. It confirms the casual, indeed arbitrary, way government policy is made.
Somebody - in tune with the third way, triangulation, stakeholding or whatever half thought out theory Tony Blair currently favours - has an idea. It is mentioned to the prime minister, who endorses it as consistent with the electoral objective he calls modernisation. That elevates the suggestion to policy. At best, consultations with the party are a sham. Blair announced his five-year education plan a week before Labour's national consultative committee met. Sometimes there is not even the pretence of a collective decision. It seems that the deputy prime minister was not told that housing association property would be sold over his head.
The notion that there should be democracy in government has not entered Blair's head. But he should worry about the practical consequences of preventing the sort of discussion that leads to collective decisions.
Occasionally, somebody with principle disagrees with what has been decided and must choose between lamely accepting an objectionable policy or making a public display of disunity. For seven years, the result of the dilemma has been constant well-documented disputes that, were the government not facing the most inept opposition this century, would cost it dear. Ministers with strong opinions have to break ranks in defence of views they should be able to argue out in the privacy of committees. Too often discretion has been given precedence over conscience - but not on the question of selling housing association property. Not for the first time, thank heavens for John Prescott.
Courtesy and clarity combined, confirming that Alastair Campbell's influence on the government information service was not as great as he claimed. "I am sorry if I sounded defensive, but I have to make our position crystal clear on this. Both right to buy and right to acquire schemes are staying exactly the same." No ambiguity there. As we used to say at school: "So now we know."
A number of questions do, however, remain. How did even Alan Milburn - a man with a visceral, if recently acquired, passion for privatisation and the distribution of public services through market mechanisms - hope to justify a policy that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister rightly identified as the antithesis of everything for which a Labour government should stand. "It would offer windfalls to a few, rather than putting help where it is needed," and it "means losing further precious housing needed for the homeless".
Has nobody told the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that homelessness is a blot on the government's record and that reducing the stock of affordable rented properties would increase the number of families in temporary (often a euphemism for squalid) accommodation? Does he not know that the right to buy local authority property has left councils all over the country with only the most decrepit houses and least accessible multi-storey flats and that, because everything they own is falling apart, they cannot afford repair or rehabilitation.
The suspicion must be that he knows - perhaps even cares - but regards the disadvantaged as less important than the crusade to build a land fit for the emergent middle class to live in. He is right to aspire to a national extension of home ownership. It is, for many families, the most desirable way to live. But that does not justify abandoning the unemployed, lone parents and the old-fashioned poor who cannot afford a mortgage.
No doubt Milburn - and the prime minister on whose patronage his career depends - believes that the creation of more owner-occupation, at the expense of housing associations and future tenants, is another way of demonstrating their rejection of Labour values. Not being Labour is again emerging as the underlying principle of the government's re-election strategy. But the way that objective is pursued creates doubts both about Milburn's judgment and the processes by which the prime minister's clique thinks policy should be made.
When Milburn "let it be known" that he intended to include selling housing association property in the 2005 manifesto, did he not think that John Prescott, the responsible minister, might object? Did he not even mention his idea to the deputy prime minister before the leak was contrived? The conflict between the two men illustrates more than Milburn's arrogant belief that, with the prime minister on his side, he can do whatever he chooses. It confirms the casual, indeed arbitrary, way government policy is made.
Somebody - in tune with the third way, triangulation, stakeholding or whatever half thought out theory Tony Blair currently favours - has an idea. It is mentioned to the prime minister, who endorses it as consistent with the electoral objective he calls modernisation. That elevates the suggestion to policy. At best, consultations with the party are a sham. Blair announced his five-year education plan a week before Labour's national consultative committee met. Sometimes there is not even the pretence of a collective decision. It seems that the deputy prime minister was not told that housing association property would be sold over his head.
The notion that there should be democracy in government has not entered Blair's head. But he should worry about the practical consequences of preventing the sort of discussion that leads to collective decisions.
Occasionally, somebody with principle disagrees with what has been decided and must choose between lamely accepting an objectionable policy or making a public display of disunity. For seven years, the result of the dilemma has been constant well-documented disputes that, were the government not facing the most inept opposition this century, would cost it dear. Ministers with strong opinions have to break ranks in defence of views they should be able to argue out in the privacy of committees. Too often discretion has been given precedence over conscience - but not on the question of selling housing association property. Not for the first time, thank heavens for John Prescott.
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