If the Tories want to survive they must build more houses

Too many Tories have a sense of inevitable defeat at the next general election. They can see what the problems are but are fatalistic about their ability to solve them before 2022.

Sajid Javid isn’t one of these Tories. He quickly grasped that the election result changed the internal Tory debate about housing policy and has been pushing for more radicalism ever since. On Sunday, he went on Andrew Marr to argue that the government should borrow to build. Javid’s argument is the same he made when he was backing Stephen Crabb for leader in 2016, interest rates are so low that it makes sense for government to borrow to invest in infrastructure.

There are those who will be uncomfortable about the idea of the government borrowing even more. There will also be Tories who worry that this borrowing to invest approach concedes too much of the argument to Labour.

But Javid’s case deserves a hearing for several reasons.