The Right to Buy meant that the only way to have a realistic ability to move if the circumstances of your life meant you had to move would be to buy, since the possibility of getting an exchamge council tenancy wa effectively vanishing. Refusing to buy on a matter of rinciple - which some people did - would put you at a serious disadvantage.

The problem with the right to buy was that it didn't include a requirement to sell back to the council at the same price, adjusted for inflation, so that the housing stock would not be eroded. It could have been done that way, and if so it would have been a very good thing. As it was, though it provided a windfall for some, it has been a disaster for society.