The May 2010 election of a Conservative-dominated UK coalition government unleashed an unprecedented austerity drive under the auspices of ‘deficit reduction’ in the wake of the global financial crisis. This article focuses on housing policy to show how the ‘cuts’ are being used as an ideological cover for a far-reaching, market-driven restructuring of social welfare policy that amounts to a return of what Ralph Miliband called ‘class war conservatism’. We revisit the main ideological contours and materialist drivers of Thatcherism as a hegemonic strategy, discussing the central role played by housing privatization in the neoliberal project that was continued, but not completed, by New Labour. We then discuss the Coalition’s assault on the housing welfare safety net it inherited, arguing this has rapidly shut down alternative directions for housing and represents a strategic intervention designed to unblock and expand the market, complete the residualization of social housing and draw people into an ever more economically precarious housing experience in order to boost capitalist interests.

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In 2016 West Ham United Football Club is due to relocate from their ground in Upton Park, where they have been for a hundred years, to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford. It is argued that the move will generate multiple regenerative benefits at local, regional and national levels. Newham Council, an authority with a reputation for civic entrepreneurialism, envisages a 'win, win, win', by keeping the club in the borough, bolstering the status of the Olympic Park and securing housing on the site of the old stadium. Similar goals are envisaged by the Mayor of London and central government, keen to ensure an 'Olympic Legacy'. However, other voices question the financial, policy and social integrity of the move. The Olympics have consumed a considerable amount of public money, but the stadium is due to be transferred to a private company (West Ham United Football Club) via a complex and controversial financial transaction. Claims of regeneration are challenged by contested interpretations of 'affordable' housing and broader concerns about the removal of an important local institution from its traditional, culturally diverse working class neighbourhood to a corporate-dominated environment where collective memories and identity may be trammelled by commercial interests. This paper critically interrogates the orthodoxy of the sport-regeneration discourse and argues that important socio-geographic, cultural and policy issues are silenced and threatened by the commercially driven rhetoric of 'legacy'.

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Despite widespread recognition that housing is a serious social concern, policy responses have tended to be inadequate. After a brief review of the magnitude of the problem, this paper focuses on recent experience in the UK where, during a period of political volatility, housing has been the subject of significant government interventions, which in turn have provoked noteworthy reactions. However, the paper argues that all current mainstream housing policy proposals are limited by their adherence to the failed market model. Instead, a more radical agenda is proposed which draws on the UK’s successful record of public housing. The paper summarises some of the key Conservative government housing policies since 2016 - including the influence of the Grenfell fire - and discusses the Labour Party’s response. It particularly critiques the policies of London Mayor Sadiq Khan which relegate traditional council housing in favour of more income-targeted provision. A high-profile report by the housing charity Shelter is also considered because of its apparent reluctance to include explicit reference to council housing within its recommendations, at a time when, it is argued, there is renewed interest in non-market housing alternatives.