Why is the UK Housing Market so different to the rest of Europe?
The legacy of a concerted assault on social housing by the frothing free-market loons behind the Thatcher administration, who hired slick manipulators to link private ownership to deeper-seated traits like “an Englishman’s home is his castle” and that liberty is a function of property. This played well to the worst petty bourgeois instincts of a substantial portion of the nation of shopkeepers and the Scots, Welsh and Irish in the North got dragged along by the Great Wen and surroundings. The bubble may well burst soon, and those who squandered the post-war social inheritance for a mess of pottage are now finding their kids can’t afford to leave home, so maybe things will swing back at some point, but don’t hold your breath.
