Thirty-five years of failed neoliberal housing policy have reached a new low.

David Cameron has announced that, if elected, a Tory government would build 200,000 new homes a year and offer 20 per cent discounts to first-time buyers under the age of 40.

It will do this by robbing Peter (the five million people on waiting lists) to pay Paul (the property developers who now control our housing policy).

Under the scheme, builders will be exempted from “section 106” payments, the crumbs from the table of big planning agreements that require local communities to see some benefit from development.

This can be in the form of infrastructure or amenities, but has increasingly become the source “affordable” housing.

The term “affordable housing” has been subject to such misuse as to be almost meaningless.

The latest example are the “affordable rents” at 80 per cent of the market level that are becoming a norm for new rented homes built with public subsidy.

As with other aspects of the housing crisis, new Labour must take some of the blame.

During the “boom” years unscrupulous developers, avaricious housing associations and supine councils made an unholy pact.

Developers built as many private homes as they could, while housing associations and councils colluded in massaging the definition of “affordable” to help them get away with it.

They were all seduced by the fantasy that the housing market could provide sustainable economic growth and the homes we need.

In the aftermath of the crash and growing anger about the scale of the housing crisis, this illusion lies in tatters.

Cameron’s announcement is a reward for failure. Public-private partnerships (PPP), which we’re told are more efficient than direct public investment, have led to a steady decline in the number of homes built.

In the 1970s 300,000 new homes a year were completed, half of them by councils.

Today output is down by two-thirds. Councils have been virtually eliminated as housebuilders and housing associations have failed to fill the gap.

Research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2013 found that 60 per cent of large housing developments were failing to meet even the inadequate targets for affordable homes.

According to the bureau, the “big 10” housebuilders control enough land to provide 480,000 new homes and made profits of £2.1 billion last year, up 34 per cent.

The big developers are both causing and profiteering from the housing crisis and now the Tories want to make it even easier for them to do it.

This is a political open goal for the Labour Party, but it’s missing.

Instead of making clear statements about the homes we need, Ed Miliband is playing the numbers game, trying to outbid the Tories on how many homes a Labour government would build.

It’s meaningless. Yes, we need more homes, but it’s “what type?” as much as “how many?” that matters.

Allowing developers to reflate the speculative property bubble makes the next market crash inevitable, while British households struggle to meet the 40 per cent of income now consumed by housing costs.

The only way to defuse the housing market is to build more genuinely affordable homes — and that means council housing.

It was a shame to hear Green Party leader Natalie Bennett struggle to explain how this can be done.

It’s simple. Let’s start with the £25bn, and rising, we currently waste on housing benefit — effectively a public subsidy to private landlords.

Second, let’s stop giving away valuable public land to private developers. The government has recently announced another fire sale of sites where 103,000 new homes can be built, with more in the pipeline.

A Labour government should halt this immediately and use public land for public housing.

Third, with rates at historic lows, the government can borrow now to invest in housing for the future.

Fourth, we can take people off the dole and give them decent jobs and apprenticeships building the homes we need.

Fifth, we can make this new generation of council homes energy efficient and begin to save the £100 a month UK households spend on energy costs.

It’s not a question of “can we afford it?” We can’t afford not to.

I’ll be a candidate for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition in the general election.

I’m standing in Tower Hamlets (Bethnal Green and Bow) where there are 20,000 people on the waiting list and some appalling housing conditions, alongside swathes of private luxury housing, much of it built on public land, using public money.

Housing will be the key issue of my campaign, as it should be for the Labour Party’s.

I have a dream where Miliband comes to me on the May 8 and says: “Glyn, what will it take for you to help me form a government?” and I reply: “Ed, all I need from you (for now) is a serious commitment to build council housing. If you’d done that before the election, you wouldn’t need my help.”