Antonio Acuña MBE

1/4 instead, build more affordable homes (and by that I mean homes the average person can afford) stop construction companies making a killing out of them and building dodgy new builds. Tax second homes, stop buy to let and tax it heavily, and build upwards when needed.

1/3 there are punitive outcomes such as stamp duty on the sell of the home (so the total value achieved by the elderly to finance their old age is yet again diminished by force).

1/2 First, the concept of ownership should be sacrosanct, secondly, I do with what I own, whatever I want, not for the state to decide that reaching age X, I must downsize, that is authoritarianism. Thirdly, there are punitive outcomes

Ending the housing crisis means taxing pensioners who won't downsize Too many family-sized homes are being lived in by older people who, bluntly, do not need them

This is why I struggle many times to talk with friends about social democracy, because ill conceived articles like this simply makes it hard to convince anyone that ‘no, social democracy is not communism’

inews.co.uk/opinion/hous...