Debate Magazine
From last Friday's Guardian, actually: Ed Miliband's plans for the political realignment of the middle class may well founder on the issue of home ownership, which you identify (Editorial, 15 January) as the key to middle-class self-identification. With house (basically land) prices so high, Labour's only recourse would be to its old post-war model of the development corporation, compulsorily purchasing land at agricultural prices and retaining any planning uplift while developing houses for sale or rent, preferably on garden city (and village) principles. Ideally a revived middle class could benefit from increased job mobility via a computerised letting service and move first into high-spec rented property then, after saving a deposit from the affordable rent, buy a house, as of old. A land value tax would be necessary to cap any current land value inflation, so maintaining the house price stability achieved. DBC Reed, Northampton.
