Another sure symptom that land shortage is to blame is that new homes in Britain are getting smaller. The square footage of the average new-build is infinitely less in Britain than in Germany or the US.

This palpable truth is still vigorously resisted by the old alliance of environmental groups and nimbys. “Why don’t we fill up those empty homes first?” they cry. “If only people could be persuaded to move to Salford or Scunthorpe, the shortage would disappear.” No, they won’t and it wouldn’t. There are always empty homes in a housing crisis, just as there are always thousands of job vacancies in times of high unemployment.

Then the green lobby chimes in, suggesting we build on brownfield sites first. To which the answer is, almost every available brownfield site which isn’t terminally toxic is up for development but that still won’t be enough. Then they say, what about all that land which the developers already have with planning permission? The truth is that every sensible developer has to have a stock of land in hand.