If my generation can’t own a home, everything Labour stands for will be forgotten

There couldn’t be more at stake

Well isn’t this the headline we’ve all been dreaming of? Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has enthusiastically jumped off the fence and plonked himself firmly and unambiguously in the YIMBY camp. On the face of it, this is a fantastic development for the British YIMBY movement; the early fruits of years of sustained campaigning.

This stands in stark contrast to Starmer’s opposite number, Rishi Sunak, who took to the stage during the the Conservative Party’s conference in Manchester to mention the strategic failure of the planning system to build enough homes and infrastructure… not even once, instead announcing the cancellation of a once in a generation infrastructure project, without any mandate from party members or the public.

The irony of the project ballooning in cost to one of the highest per-mile rail lines in the world, primarily due to our dysfunctional planning system and attempted NIMBY-placation that he is doing nothing to reform, should not be lost on any of us.

If this is what the Tories have to offer the British youth — ever increasing housing costs, cancelled infrastructure projects, higher taxes, and removing the ability of grown adults to chose whether they can or cannot smoke — it will find even right wing under-40s reject it for the freer economics, planning and house building deregulation and higher real wages of a Labour-run administration. The Conservative Party is freely ceding its own territory of aspiration and liberty to its opponents, even as the Canadian Tories bravely yank their territory back.

Sir Beer Korma, a YIMBY gigachad?

On Wednesday I set out in the i how we should, nonetheless, remain highly cautious when looking at Starmer’s vision. Conservative housing secretaries have been promising reform for the best part of 13 years, and we have little to show for it, despite, in many cases, a genuine wish and ambition to achieve reform¹.

Starmer’s lofty ambitions are to be lauded, but we should look beyond announcing the construction of new towns and social housing to the deep roots and structural causes of the housing crisis, to solve the British planning system’s deep failings once-and-for-all.

Long-term decisions for a brighter future, you might say…

---

If my generation can’t own a home, everything Labour stands for will be forgotten

Keir Starmer set out grand and ambitious plans for building 1.5 million homes in his conference speech on Tuesday, closing what could be the last conference season before the next general election. He has promised to build a generation of new towns, echoing the Clement Attlee vision that oversaw the construction of Basildon, Stevenage and Slough, each accompanied by education, health and transport infrastructure.

Such aspiration is a soothing balm for younger generations burned by decades of housing policy failure that has seen British housing become some of the worst, and most expensive, in the world.

Yet despite our appalling housing conditions, which at the sharp end pushes people into homelessness and sees society’s most vulnerable forced to live in overcrowded, mould-infested slum housing, oft-promised reform has not yet occurred…

To read this full article on what Starmer needs to do to seal the deal and lock in planning reform that lasts rather than being a flash in the pan, please visit i News using the link here: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/generation-home-everything-labour-stands-forgotten-2677504

---

Student loans: How I avoided paying tens of thousands of pounds in tax

I also spoke to the i’s Callum Mason last week on the impending 9 per cent cut to my marginal tax rate that I only will see through by the grace of being born 72 hours early enough. Being born on the 29th of August put me just the right side of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s changes to the student fees and loans system, giving me a ‘Plan 1’ loan, rather than a ‘Plan 2’ loan.

The lower interest rates and far smaller fees mean I stand to be paying the full amount off within only a few years, leading to this 9 per cent marginal rate cut. This equates to hundreds of pounds a month in additional net income and really hits home how damaging the student fee changes were to the generation of students that followed my intake year, separated only by three days.

You can read his write-up here: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/student-loans-absurd-born-later-cost-tens-thousands-extra-tax-2660812

1. No, really. Plenty of Tory housing secretaries have attempted to untie this Gordian knot, but failed despite their good and noble intentions — notably Robert Jenrick.