Britain's pursuit of the "property-owning democracy" has come grinding to a halt amid the debris of the credit crunch, with the proportion of people owning their own houses slumping to the lowest level in a generation. A new government report into the state of housing in England shows that the proportion of owner-occupiers has fallen to 66 per cent, its lowest level since 1988 – when Margaret Thatcher was freely declaring her ambition "to create one nation by creating a property-owning democracy". The anaemic housing market is expected to suffer another major blow next month, with the ending of the stamp duty ... (full story)