Our Council house system has always been based on giving first call on housing to families with children, to the disabled and to old people. That is the order of priorities I have always supported, as I think most reasonable people do.

When I heard, two or three years ago, that the Government were proposing to extend priority rights to three new categories of people, alcoholics, drug abusers and released prisoners (all defined as “vulnerable people”) my first thought was that they had gone quite mad.

I remember asking Duncan Kerr, the Chief Executive of South Kesteven District Council (and a very considerable expert on housing, as on all other things connected with local government), “Do you mean that if I go out, get drunk, get a fix and punch you hard in the face you will have to give me a Council House?” The answer was more or less “yes”.