Speaking last night at the IEA’s £50,000 Breakthrough Prize awards ceremony, Jacob Rees Mogg launched a blistering attack on the green belt, describing it as a “corset” that restricts “our housing market to breathe by at least 25%.” For an MP whose seat is largely green belt land to say this shows that one of Britain’s sacred political cows might be beginning to become a bit less sacred.

The prize was won by Ben Clements, who proposed a ‘Land Purchase Act’ – a market-based policy that centres on how swathes of public land can be made available for people to build homes according to their own choice and preference. Individuals building houses on the bits of the green belt that are state-owned seems preferable to corporations building unimaginative estates. It is also an easier political sell to NIMBYs…