The Boris Johnson housing plan: LESS affordable homes

The Tory Mayoral candidate for London, Boris Johnson, yesterday came out with his plan to tackle our housing crisis: scrap all obligations on councils to ensure affordable homes are built!

Of course, it wasn't Londoners priced out of the housing market Boris chose to announce his bright idea to: it was house-builders, who would much rather reap the extra profits than honour their commitment to the areas they pile up their gated-off luxury apartments in the midst of.

Along with Wandsworth's Conservative Council - that has just about the worst record in London for building affordable homes and has almost halved the number of council homes for rent in the borough from 32,000 to less than 17,000 - these are just about the only people who would regard Boris's plan as anything other than plain stupid.

So under the Tories, we'll see even more luxury riverside penthouses along our Thamesbank, more public sites sold off for private housing, greater overcrowding, even higher house prices, more homelessness and longer waiting lists.

We desperately need more affordable homes, not less. I think the problem is severe enough in London that I don't think even Ken Livingstone is being radical enough: for the next five years I believe two thirds of all homes built in the Capital should be affordable - mainly for rent. Fat-cat developers like St George won't like that of course, but they know full well that they can still net a huge profit on the one-third of properties they could still sell.

No one can reasonably argue that there is no difference between Labour and Conservative. This is a critical problem: the Tories either ignore it (as Putney's MP does), or want to make it worse. I know Boris likes to play up to his 'buffoon' image but this is ridiculous.