However, unlike Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and, this week’s cover star, David Cameron, we have not been seeking your vote.

Instead, our House Proud campaign, which we have run in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Housing, has asked for your support in shouting about the invaluable role played by housing professionals in communities across the UK.

The campaign aimed to encourage a ground-swell of popular support for continued investment in housing. The backing that we have received from our readers has been crucial in securing recognition from all the main parties of the importance of housing to the British economy, so thank you for your support.

Given the cuts - of 25 per cent or more - that are coming our way in this summer’s comprehensive spending review, the importance of strong, demonstrable support for the sector cannot be underestimated in restricting the axe’s swing.

The first stage of the campaign may be over (page 12), but the lobbying of whoever forms the new government after 6 May will not end. The CIH will maintain the momentum through the creation of a ‘housing pact’ with delegates at its annual conference in Harrogate in June, which
it will then present to the new housing minister.

One of the problems this new minister will have to address is the rise of the far-right British National Party in many deprived communities. As we report this week, Nick Griffin and his party have made a series of unfounded claims in Barking and Dagenham and other areas in the north of England and the midlands about locals in housing need being ‘swindled’ in favour of migrants.

House Proud raised the housing sector’s voice in support of the good it does, and in the face of such cynical distortion of the work housing professionals do to help society’s most needy our voices now need to be raised in protest once more.

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