This government is stuck on the letter “B”. Build Back Better. Bus Back Better. And now Benefits to Bricks. And, of course, there is the perennial Boris Bluster. The speech Boris Johnson gave in Blackpool on Thursday seemed to be more about keeping Johnson in his home at No 10 than getting others into homes. Although billed as a “housing speech” it was more a rambling justification for Johnson’s position. Although the main topic was meant to be housing, we heard of olive oil and bananas, Suez and Ukraine, inflation, policing, health, cost of living, riots and much more on the way to mortgages and a right to buy for social housing tenants.

We were told we are living in good times: “People don’t face the misery of the 1980s or 1990s”. Johnson failed to mention that all but three years of those decades were under Conservative governments. And that there wasn’t then a food bank in every community. And when he said, “Everyone can see and feel the impact on household budgets”, I briefly fantasised that he too was flat broke and was facing the cruel choice between fuel, heating and food.

This government is out of touch with how hard times are for many people. And that shows in its current announcements, including Benefits to Bricks.

The basics of Benefits to Bricks have only been sketched. The government aims to make “it easier for hard-working people to put away a little each month until they have enough for a deposit on their first home”, perhaps through an ISA. There will more flexibility to use benefits to pay mortgages if people lose their jobs. There is nothing particularly controversial in these measures, though whether this will go down in history as political bluster or as a policy that made a real difference remains to be seen.

The main plank of the policy is to breathe life into a long standing Conservative commitment to sell social homes to tenants at a discount:

“I want us to deliver on the long-standing commitment… to extend the right to buy to housing associations. There are now 2.5 million households whose homes belong to housing associations – and they are trapped. They cannot buy, they don’t have the security of ownership, they cannot treat their home as their own or make the improvements they want.”

Michael Gove has pledged to replace homes sold off on a one to one basis. We have heard that so many times before and councils have only been funded to replace one third of the council homes they have sold.

Like the Right to Buy, this policy may well prove popular but it is bad housing policy. And it is bad timing for the housing sector which has replaced only one third of the council houses sold off. There are now 1.4 million fewer households in England in social housing than there were in 1980. House prices have soared and private rents have soared. Selling off social homes will further reduce the stock of housing available for those who cannot afford a mortgage or need the support provided by a housing association. The policy will reduce flexibility of housing options. An analysis by Shelter shows a significant deficit in social homes, which can only be made worse by this policy.

Lord Kerslake has led the criticism of Boris Johnson’s announcement. He points out that social homes are not the governments to sell, that the Treasury thinks the scheme poor value for money and 40% of council homes sold off under Right to Buy ended up in the private rented sector. As a result, it is suggested that £9bn is paid in housing benefit to private landlords. Kerslake is not the only critic. Shelter called the announcement a “baffling, unworkable, and a dangerous gimmick”. Crisis said: “This ill-conceived announcement is the exact opposite of what we need to tackle the mounting housing crisis.” The National Housing Federation said the pilots “have shown that there is not enough money from sales to build new social homes to replace those sold, meaning a net loss of social housing.”

I have little doubt that part of the political rational for the Right to Buy for council homes and the new policy for social homes is the belief that home owners are more likely to vote Conservative. This was the theory behind for the Homes for Votes scandal in Westminster in the 1980s. Early research showed that purchasers under Right to Buy were more likely to vote Conservative than non‐purchasers. But recent research suggests that Tory voters are more likely to buy homes (rather than buying a home makes you think Tory). If anything, those that change their political views on purchase tend more towards Labour towards than the Conservatives.

This is a wrong headed policy which will undoubtedly be cheered through the Common by backbenchers. But it will just add to the misery of those that cannot get a decent home that suits their needs.

* Andy Boddington is a Lib Dem councillor in Shropshire. He blogs at andybodders.co.uk.