Let’s start with a short analogy. Picture a small manufacturer beginning the week. They make a respectable product, price it with care and hope that, if the stars align, next year might allow a new machine or two.

Now imagine informing this same firm that, from tomorrow, anywhere between 35 and 50% of its output must be handed over at cost or less. Its designs will no longer follow customer demand but the preferences of a committee with no intention of ever buying the product.

A slice of its revenue will be siphoned into public good initiatives entirely unrelated to the business. And if, despite all of that, it still turns a profit while carrying every ounce of risk, a clawback will be on hand to sweep up whatever margin remains.

No credible observer would expect this arrangement to survive in any other sector. Yet this is the framework in which we expect homes to be built and, more strikingly, it enjoys near universal political approval.

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