Encouraging freeing-up of oversized homes is communism

TESSA Jowell is enthusiastic about a report which suggests that older people should not live in houses with more than the basic accommodation to suit their number and age.

She comments that perhaps taxes could be used to load the financial odds against those who wish to live in the homes which they have saved for and acquired for their families during their lives. As it can cost more to downsize than to stay put, they should be thinking of incentives, not penalties.

Perhaps the next suggestion will be to take over the thousands of holiday homes which lie empty for something like half of every year, or even the seemingly little-used second homes of MPs. Maybe the latter would have wider popular approval.

This line of thinking of course smacks of Communism, as practised by the Eastern Bloc states for most of the last century, which proved to be a manifest failure.

Instead, what about the Government getting a grip of the councils who have tens of thousands of homes empty or boarded up due to the incompetence of councils and housing associations?

Then they could look to some way to assist the movement of the mass of properties already on the market, either to let or for sale.

They could also encourage development on less controversial brownfield sites instead of fighting public opinion by chewing up more of the countryside.

Ms Jowell might also comment on why the last Labour government, in which she served, was so generous in opening the doors to the country to all and sundry, so many of whom now manage to live off the taxes paid by others and no doubt expect free accommodation.

Not every older person wishes to live in some semi-institutionalised standard-sized box. Many have family who visit and need to be accommodated.

If Ms Jowell and her Lefty chums do not like England as it is, there is a solution.

Go and find some other country to annoy.