David Cameron did say that his proposal to end council houses for life would trigger
“quite a big argument” – and that is exactly what he has got today. The Lib Dems’ Simon Hughes has offered the most vociferous dissent so far, stressing that this “in no way represent the policy of the
coalition and certainly do not represent the policy of the Liberal Democrats.” And, to be fair, he has a point: the idea had not gone through coalition channels before Cameron mooted it
yesterday, and neither was it contained in the Tory manifesto – so there still needs to be a lot of conversation and consideration before anything like it can be put into action.
It would be a shame if this reduced to a Tory-Lib Dem split story, though. Cameron may have surprised some of his coalition colleagues with his words yesterday, but he is right to be thinking radically about a policy area which doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
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