ABSTRACT
The new approach to the sale of council houses is one among a series of radical changes in traditional public housing policy that has included also the determination of national targets for rent increases and the progressive withdrawal of central government subsidy. The Conservative government's concern with extending the potential for the privatisation of public housing arises from two quite different sources. Conservative policy towards the privatisation of council housing has stressed the unfairness of preventing council tenants from enjoying the benefits of home-ownership. The ideological commitment on the left to the responsibility of the state for basic needs is focused more the days in relation to housing onto the issue of homelessness. In practice, public housing has been able to insulate itself from the economic logic of the market economy more by accident than as the deliberate expression of a socialist approach to value.
