𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Burnham noted that Britain has lost almost 1.5million council homes since the 1980s, and blamed this for the rise in families waiting for social housing. As a result, the government spends a fortune on housing benefit, much of which ends up in the pockets of private landlords. Housing will therefore be his top priority. It sounds great when you put it like that. But I have one minor quibble. His plan won’t work. The reason is simple. It’s pure, proven fantasy.

I simply looked at the financial results from the biggest UK housebuilders, which are freely available to all, including politicians. In the year to June 30, 2022, Barratt Redrow completed 17,200 homes. A year later, it mustered just 14,000. Even Chancellor Rachel Reeves can see that the second number is smaller than the first.

Builders were cutting output as higher interest rates squeezed buyer demand, while rising labour and material costs pushed up costs. Those problems weren’t going to disappear because a new PM demanded it. Starmer was simply reheating the same promise every PM before him had made, and ended up in the same place.

In 2007, Labour set a target of 240,000 homes a year. It managed 142,000. In 2019, Boris Johnson pledged 300,000 homes annually. We got 150,000. Starmer’s 1.5million pledge also works out as 300,000 a year. In the year to March, we got 143,000. The construction industry doesn’t have the labour, the skills or the land. And with Reeves taxing anything that moves, they don’t have the incentives either.

But somehow Burnham is going to be different. All he needs is a sprinkle of his blessed Manchesterism, and 1.5million council houses will magically rise out of the ground. He certainly can’t do it with money. There isn’t any.

Starmer pledged £39billion to build social and affordable homes. Made no difference. But then, Sir Keir didn’t come from Manchester.

The problem Burnham faces is that there’s even less money available today. Naturally, he hasn’t explained where he’ll find it. Maybe it will come from the defence budget. After seeing off Vladimir Putin with a blast of weapons-grade magic Manchesterism, we may not need all those expensive missiles, frigates and drones.

The council house pledge is totally dishonest and a shambles waiting to happen. Swept away by his own rhetoric, Burnham is setting himself up to fail before he’s even started.

Labour will bang on about housing while refusing to face the cold, hard truth that when you add nine million to the population in 20 years, housing shortages will surely follow. Even magic Manchesterism can’t wish away basic maths. Burnham’s magical thinking won’t survive its clash with reality. Nor will his popularity. It’ll soon dissolve into thin air, as if by magic.