From the archive: By Alistair McIntosh, first published in 2012

Tally-ho! Where are the proper Tories when you need them? I’ve worked with loads of them over the years. They always wanted to do two things – stop the right to buy in its tracks and keep rents as low as possible.

Proper shire Tories fought to save housing from Thatcher. Stock transfer was their weapon of choice. I know because I was there. Once upon a time my job was to help to push through these deals. Today, their work is at risk. Who wants to destroy their legacy? Step forward the think-tank Tories.

So, how do these two sets of Tories differ? A proper Tory fights tooth and nail to build houses for local people in villages. I’ve seen them take a lot of flak at meetings from NIMBYs. What does a think-tank Tory do? He or she wanders around London, spots a council estate in a nice area, and demands that the oiks are kicked out so that he or she or someone like them can live there. A proper Tory wants to help others, a think-tank Tory wants to help himself. The think-tank Tories think they’re clever. Are they really? Here’s a cracking problem that they’ve created.

There’s a proper Tory council that wants to build 200 homes for local people to rent. Why do they need to build these homes? Because it’s an expensive area and the locals can’t get their foot on the ladder. The council has a duty to help out. But this is where we hit a snag. The think tankers want the high value council homes sold off. So as soon as this council builds its homes it’ll need to sell them off. Why? Because of where they are, the values are bound to soar over the local thresholds for high value council homes. You can’t do right for doing wrong.

Isn’t it ironic that the old guys with red jackets on horses wanted to be the saviours of social housing? Meanwhile, the younger Tories play up as the council house hunt saboteurs. Never trust a Tory who can’t ride a horse. That’s the big lesson you need to learn.

I’d never make it as a Tory myself. The shire guys see right through me. Believe it or not, I used to walk my dogs with William Hague’s agent. As you would expect, his hounds were well behaved. My gangsta cockers were not like that at all. One word from me and they did what they wanted. It was obvious that I was a townie. Never mind, at least that’s a bit better than being a think tanker.

Now, I don’t want to come across as an old git. But OK, I will. One of the problems with the think tankers is that they’re just too darn young. In some ways they remind me of footballers. Young players can get through tons of money in a flash. They just don’t think about the future. Life is too easy. What can go wrong? Every think tank has got its beady eyes on housing association surpluses today. It just looks like a huge pile of free money. Of course, there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why the cash is there. Sadly, no one will be listening to that.

Now, I don’t for a moment expect that the think tankers will blow the lot on Ferraris. But they’ll have plans for it. And just like a footballer, they’ll gamble all the cash away. Not at the bookies but at the estate agents. They think the housing market is a one-way bet. That worries me. I can remember the last time things looked this rosy in the housing market. Officials told us then to borrow a lot more money. We needed to build plenty of new homes for people. It seemed a good idea at the time. Then, a few months later, the credit crunch hit. Are we there again? Who knows? But I do know one thing. Those proper Tories were careful with money.

In fact, we used to call them ‘old money’, didn’t we? It seems to me that these new think tank Tories are far too keen to sell off the family silver. The proper Tories need to do the decent thing. They can’t hunt foxes anymore by law. Not that the locals were any good at that. I told them they were the world’s first vegetarian hunt. Anyway, why not set the hounds on the think-tank Tories instead? A sharp bite could well bring the young whippersnappers to heel.