Housing crisis? No, just a very British sickness | Simon Jenkins

The daily calls to build new homes are based on meaningless data, with little reference to actual demand or existing stock

Housing booms are today's medieval plagues. Boils suppurate on the political backside. People rush to find culprits to lynch. Quacks appear on street corners with fake remedies. Reason takes a holiday.

Thus it was yesterday, as the Today programme's John Humphrys chided David Cameron for the "housing crisis" and for not building more houses in the Tory shires...