The promised Tory housing revolution to transform a generation is pitiful

Homes failure

WHATEVER happened to the Tory housing revolution to transform a generation’s lives?

The latest cash injection is derisory.

The Government is trumpeting £2billion of new funding for housing associations over six years from 2022. That’s just 7,000 homes a year nationwide.

Our population is increasing by almost 400,000 a year. The annual ­target for new homes is 300,000 — and we doubt even that would lower prices enough for young people to afford to buy in London and the South East.

In fairness, the total HAS risen to 217,000 a year, the most since 2007. But it’s still way short — and the Government’s remedies are woefully timid.

Sajid Javid promised a huge shake-up when he ran housing. He was knocked back by the negativity from Philip Hammond’s Treasury. Then he moved on.

We need to slash planning restrictions and defy obstructive NIMBYs. We need to stop the land-banking that sees developers hoard plots or release homes at a snail’s pace to keep prices high.

We need more cash help for small builders. We should borrow billions, build affordable homes on public land and sell them at a profit for the Treasury.

The Tories need to wake up or housing will sink them. Instead they are hyping up some footling new funding that only partly reverses a previous cut.

It fools no one.

Now EU bend

WHY is the EU wasting time pressing for a border between Britain and Northern ­Ireland? It’s a non-starter.

No Government could consider it. Especially not one entirely reliant on the votes of those most vehemently opposed to splitting up the UK, the DUP.

This cannot be news to Brussels. They cannot believe Theresa May will surrender and collapse her Government.

Why persist with it? The answer must be: to run down the clock — until, at the last minute, Mrs May agrees virtually anything to avoid a No Deal.

Which is why Donald Tusk also still insists key areas of our wildly over-generous Chequers offer must be “reworked”.

Mrs May has gone as far as she can. Two Cabinet figures have quit already. She must insist it’s take it or leave it.

Only Britain has made genuine compromises in this negotiation, as despondent Brexiteers know only too well.

It’s the EU’s turn.

Tide of evil

FROM child abuse images to terrorism, Facebook is a platform for evil it seems unable or unwilling to prevent.

Now it is hosting ads for people- smuggling gangs luring children to their doom in the Mediterranean.

A new low, even for a tech giant with apparently no moral compass.

Since Facebook now admits it is a publisher, why isn’t it regulated as one?