On Tuesday of the Conservative party conference, shadow housing minister Grant Schapps said that "as compassionate Conservatives, we recognise the importance of social housing and the security it provides. We will protect and respect the rights of social tenants."
Yet, as is often the case, these polite words were followed by almost no detail. For the detail, you have to look elsewhere; perhaps, as Labour's Housing Minister John Healey did at Labour conference the week before, at the minutes of a meeting earlier this year between leading Conservatives to discuss the future of social housing.
At this meeting, held in Clutha House, SW1, a few hundred yards from Downing Street, the assembled Tories declared that "The Sacred Cows Need to be Shot".
As with the meetings of other organisations based in Clutha House, which include David Cameron's ‘favourite think-tank' Policy Exchange, the meeting was well-attended by influential thinkers in current Conservative politics.
According to the minutes, the self-styled ‘compassionate Conservative' Grant Schapps was joined by Boris Johnson's deputy Sir Simon Milton, along with David Cameron's special advisor on housing Owen Inskip, and the leaders of Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, and Wandsworth Councils, to flesh out the sacred cows they had in their sights.
Individually, the ideas floated in the discussion make you anxious enough. They speak of raising social rents to free market levels; they say that "social renters should be encouraged or required to take on more repairs"; and they argue the benefits of "portable tenancy arrangements".
But the sum of the individual ideas in the minutes document amount to a worryingly coherent vision for a profound change to the social rented sector.
The Tory plans would end rent-capping for social tenants. They want to end the difference between social-rented and private-rented tenures by creating "an equal market between the private and social rental sectors by lifting rent controls".
This would mean protection against unaffordable rents would only be available through benefits - and there is a big question of exactly what protection that might amount to with suggestions of the ‘localisation' of benefit levels and the decisions about who gets them.
The needy would no longer be prioritised for social housing. Councils would get "the right to determine priorities for letting plans" and housing associations would see the removal of "any restrictions in terms of use of stock where social housing grant has been taken".
Security of tenure would be gradually eliminated. The Tories would give existing tenants "portable tenancy arrangements" whilst new tenants of social housing would sign up to "one form of rented tenure using the assured shorthold tenure model as the template."
If council and housing association homes can be rented to whomever regardless of need, the only subsidy is benefits, and security of tenure goes - what is left? Certainly not social housing as we know it.
Not only do the Tories want to get rid of the social housing we have at the moment - but they want to ensure no more is built.
They are reported as saying that "benefits needed to become ‘person-centred'. There was a general consensus that bricks and mortar subsidies need to be substantially reduced or eliminated."
Does this mean the end of the social housing grant? Stopping subsidy being fed into the system at the time of construction as it is now, with no more affordable homes being built?
What else could they mean when they say: "as subsidies move from capital projects to households, the intermediate housing market would expand and a far wider market would be created which would respond to affordability issues and largely replace the current welfare offer"?
Grant Schapps must explain what this ‘intermediate housing' is, and how it is going to "protect and respect" tenants' rights.
Security of tenure for social tenants means that many families who will never have the money to buy can raise their children in a secure family home - rather than being subject to the whim of a shorthold tenancy. It is a right hard-won and must not be taken away.
Furthermore, if state support for housing were covered by benefits alone, this could raise the very real possibility of Tory governments, or councils with new powers to vary benefits locally, cutting the only state assistance left. This would have disastrous consequences for the housing of millions of families across the country.
The Tories seem to view social housing as an aberration to the housing market that should be removed. Perhaps they just can't see beyond it being a block on the free market they cling to. The next time I meet a council tenant who says there is no difference between Labour and the Tories, I will try and tell them about the Conservative plans. The only problem is they are not likely to believe me!
It is not hyperbolic to describe the Tories' long-term plan as the elimination of social housing altogether. This is a sacred cow we must fight to protect.
