Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, the man whose very name sounds like a third sector funding crisis, has announced that under a Tory government every family living in social housing "will have the chance to move around the country by exchanging their home for another one". (Sources: Regen & Renewal, New Start).
'A Tory government would set up a national database that would enable social tenants to find alternative accommodation anywhere in the country.'
Maybe don't knock it just yet - it could have some positive consequences for use of housing stock. Moves are surely more likely to be local than regional or national; but some cases could get singed by eg inflammable family tensions over child-care versus employment opportunities, being further from extended families, reluctance to change schools and so on.
If I knew more about the contemporary stream of tacky television programmes, I might just be suspicious that the idea occurred to someone in a Tory think-bowl without their even having to move from their own sofa. That's what we need, a government that is frugal on its own development costs and lets the broadcast media do what it's good at.
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