This is the bit of Right to Buy discourse that really gets on my tits, because I know loads of people who did it. My grandparents bought their council house after living there for decades. My mum did it at one point. Of course they did. If the state says, “Do you want to buy the house you already live in at a massive discount and actually own something?”, most working-class people are going to say yes. Why the fuck wouldn’t they? And that is why Right to Buy was such brilliant politics. It was genuinely empowering for the people who benefited from it. You went from being a council tenant to owning an asset, having something to leave your kids, being less dependent on the state. I completely understand why that appealed. It also fits Thatcher almost perfectly. I don’t think her philosophy was simply “fuck everyone, you’re on your own”, which is how “there’s no such thing as society” often gets remembered. It was more this belief that responsibility starts with the individual and the family, then the neighbours, the church, the voluntary group, the local community. Her father was exactly that kind of civic-minded greengrocer who got involved in everything, and I sometimes wonder how much of Thatcherism boils down to WHY CAN’T EVERYBODY JUST BE LIKE MY DAD? And, well, because they fucking aren’t. HERE COMES THE GOBLIN. What happens when Derek doesn’t help his neighbour? What happens when Derek is skint? What happens when Derek is 84? What happens when Derek has three kids, two jobs and absolutely no fucking time? What happens when Derek assumes Sandra will do it, Sandra assumes the church will do it, the church assumes the charity will do it, and the charity has lost its funding? You have rediscovered WHY INSTITUTIONS EXIST. “People should step up” is a perfectly decent moral sentiment. IT IS NOT A FUCKING DELIVERY MECHANISM. You cannot organise healthcare, housing, education, social care and poverty relief around SOME DECENT BLOKE WILL PROBABLY SORT IT OUT. That is literally why we build systems. Human beings are inconsistent. Some people are incredibly generous. Some are selfish. Most have their own shit going on. A functioning society cannot make essential things depend on whether an unusually conscientious greengrocer happens to live three doors down. And Right to Buy is almost the perfect example. For one family, fantastic. You buy your council house. You pay it off. You have security. Your children inherit something. Brilliant. Then another family does it. Then another. Then another. House 100,000: sold. House 500,000: sold. House 1,000,000: sold. At some point some 25-year-old cleaner turns up and asks: “LOVELY. WHERE’S MINE?” And suddenly everybody gets very interested in personal responsibility. That is the bit that annoys me about using someone’s mum buying her council house as proof that Right to Buy worked. OF COURSE IT WORKED FOR YOUR MUM. THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT. The question is whether it worked as a housing system over generations. Because if Brenda the cleaner could buy her council house in 1987, but Chloe the cleaner in 2026 is now paying private rent on Brenda’s old council house and needs two incomes, a massive deposit and preferably some conveniently deceased grandparents before she can buy anything herself, then you solved Brenda’s housing problem. YOU DID NOT CRACK HOUSING. You sold the chair and then told the next generation they should have got there sooner.