"The rush into home ownership, by people who simply could not afford mortgages was one of the typical symptoms of capitalism in the raw.
The mad idea that owning ones home meant financial security, when the exact opposite was the case.

With the new homes came a very expensive lifestyle, décor furnishings etc......it was win win for the system and big future losses for Joe Bloggs when it all went arse up!"

1: The rush into home ownership that "Right-To-Buy" brought about saw former Council House Tenants buying properties that they had lived in for years (decades in many cases) very cheaply, no need to point out that those houses were already fully furnished and the mortgages on those properties were tiny and easily affordable.

2: The problem you describe Ake came later and was not tied to anything political in the UK. What you detail was all part and parcel of your "false and artificially high" expectation problem. Our parents lived within their means or starved that is what life and commonsense taught them - not so today's generation who believe that debt can be walked away from and there can be no consequences as "they know their rights" and it is always somebody else's fault and they should pick up the tab.

3: Where what you describe was politically driven was over in the USA during the Clinton Administrations time in Office. To buy votes and demonstrate to all that the American Dream was alive and well and achievable Mortgage Brokers were hoodwinked into arranging mortgages for people who could not afford them. In cahoots with the Clinton Administration the main mortgage brokers in the USA, Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae, implied to the banks and those providing mortgages that the Fed would guarantee the loans - This was untrue and the Fed knew nothing about it. House prices rose and people thought that house values would rise for ever, which of course they didn't. Unfortunately those who had been given mortgages that they couldn't afford had remortgaged their properties and when this bubble burst and loans were called in the Fed did not guarantee the loans and we had the financial crash of 2008 (Some 17 years after Margaret Thatcher left office).