Ian Dunt

Because of that, we get unfixed problems in the economy.

Because of that, we get a failing political class.

What about the expertise of ministers who may spend two, three years in the portfolio and then go on to somewhere else?

Honestly, the days when they used to spend two, three years in the portfolio are now a kind of halcyon dream.

We used to laugh at the degree of churn when they had two years.

I mean, we've had 25 housing secretaries since the year 2000.

We've basically had one housing secretary every year.

We've had periods where we've cycled through.

three to five education in the health secretaries over the course of one year because of partly the degree of just sort of chaos in the system, but partly because there's no incentive on prime ministers to pick people according to any kind of specialist knowledge or experience or deep domain understanding.

So instead, what do they pick for?

They pick in the same way that the parties pick the candidate.

They pick for obedience and loyalty.

Who's been loyal to me to keep me in position?

And then suddenly when there's a threat to the authority, they do a reshuffle.

And every time they do a reshuffle, all of the business of government freezes in all departments because civil servants don't know who's going to be running the department in a couple of weeks' time.

And then people get moved around.

And usually they get moved around just at the point where they've actually developed enough knowledge to understand the subject area that they're ostensibly supposed to be governing.

So, you know, they've had 18 months.

Maybe they've got to grips with something about housing policy and that's the exact point that you move them and get someone in who doesn't know anything again.

And then we sit back after a quarter of a century of crisis in housing and go, my God, no one can afford housing.