Far from becoming 'a nation of housebuilders', we are facing an acute crisis with housing output at its lowest levels since the early 1920s, says Nick Raynsford.

Government and opposition are very different processes and require very different skills. Mario Cuomo, former governor of the State of New York encompassed the difference in his famous observation: 'You campaign in poetry, but govern in prose.' On the same theme, he also emphasised the importance of getting the public 'to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things.'