I agree that house price inflation is a major detriment to the country, and needs to be reversed, but this began under Lawson, not Brown, and the growth of buy to let has been one of the major problems. Funnily enough people need furnishings for their homes whether they buy them or rent them. or would you rather that they were living in cardboard boxes, or makeshift tents covered by plastic bags, as in teh third world.

"What Thatcher created was a nation of stakeholders."

Sure, but they are a tiny minority. Most of us have no stake, far less of a stake than we did after WWII, when with the implementation of Beveridge, the creation of the NHS and the welfare state, most people did have a stake in the country which has sense been gradually taken away.