Bradford West MP George Galloway commented on the Policy Exchange report: 'What do you expect from a right-wing Tory think-tank but more policies to punish the poor because they are poor? It's not just undesirable, it's unworkable and it's tantamount to social engineering. And we don't need to go too far back in history to see where that leads. The strength of our communities lies in their diversities.
This country is divided enough between rich and poor and the last thing we need is gated ghettoes for the rich and plasterboard estates on brownfield sites ringing our cities. Of course we need to build more affordable homes but this coalition government is cutting budgets everywhere and we haven't felt the real effects of this yet.
'I'd dismiss this as a mere madness from a braying bunch of privileged wonks without any real experience of politics but unfortunately there's history here of the Tories taking up the more harebrained of their ideas. But this one will never happen. Neither will the Policy Exchange ever pronounce on ways to stop the tax evasion and avoidance which is costing this country £70 billion a year.'
