Estate agents have been put at the heart of Britain's recovery. We should be worried | Polly Toynbee

The government’s deification of the property market should alarm those hoping for a more equal post-coronavirus society

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Everyone thinks they have “common sense”, but Boris Johnson’s may not be the same as yours or mine. But if you think it’s blindingly self-evident that only social democratic solutions can rebuild an economy plummeting into waters deeper than those of the South Sea bubble, beware. Prepare for a fight against the “common sense” of old enemies, battling not to return to the inequality-fuelling, environment-destroying normal, but to make it far worse.

In Wednesday’s daily briefing, the housing and communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, delivered this homily: “I do know that in every economic recovery in modern British history, the housing market has been key.” With this, he reopened the housing market and set estate agents free to be our prime engines of growth.

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