The Labour government currently shows little sign of taking control of housebuilder Vistry. While senior aide Nick Williams wrote a paper earlier this year arguing for state control, Downing Street and the Treasury are not taking the proposal seriously. For now, the group remains a private, listed company.

For now at least, there is little sign the state will take control of the group

Good morning. The world is still reverberating from the shock gains made by Democrats at the expense of Donald Trump's Republicans in the US midterms, with thoughts now turning to what it could mean for the global economy, the Middle East and Ukraine.

We spent a lot of this week's Political Fix podcast discussing what the results mean for British politics and, in particular, whether they further damage Nigel Farage, who has long boasted of his links to Trump. Find our recording here.

And the FT website is awash with brilliant coverage from our excellent teams in Washington, across the US and the markets desk as well as our international commentators.

Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Follow Jim on Bluesky and Georgina on Bluesky. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.com

Under monitoring

Today, though, I wanted to look at a fascinating policy dilemma much closer to home: is the Labour government looking to nationalise one of Britain's biggest builders?

I'm writing this one quite cautiously given it involves a major listed company. And the answer is probably no. But it's quite an interesting test of Andy Burnham's talk about "greater public control" and how far he is willing to put it into practice.

This is what we know. Nick Williams, a senior aide in the Cabinet Office, wrote a paper months ago (before he was given that job) arguing for state control of Vistry.

An unscrupulous journalist could write a breathless front-page news story saying "senior Labour government figure has drawn up plans to nationalise Vistry", and it would be technically accurate. But it could also be wildly misleading.

The big question is whether Downing Street and the Treasury are taking this proposal seriously. The indications, for now, are: not so much.

Williams used to be an infrastructure special adviser in Keir Starmer's Number 10 but was one of the countless figures to be pushed out during that rocky period of political history.

Earlier this year -- while he was out of government -- we got hold of a lengthy paper by him setting out why he thought Vistry should be taken into state control.

The memo said Vistry should be nationalised and turned into a new "delivery body" for the government's plans. Williams argued that ministers could use legislation to nationalise Vistry in the way that the government recently took control of British Steel.

"It is a ready-made delivery body for strategic projects like New Towns. Acquiring it would be faster and simpler than building a public corporation from scratch and it is currently cheap," he wrote in the paper. "An acquisition would be a politically significant proof point for the strategic power of the state."

There is no doubt that ministers have been monitoring Vistry, whose share price has fallen by 57 per cent since the start of the year. The housebuilder has been one of the most shorted stocks on the London Stock Exchange this year.

The FT first reported the existence of the Williams memo in July. Vistry said at the time that it had not had any discussions with the government about a potential takeover. Since then Williams has re-emerged as an adviser to Louise Haigh, who was a key figure in Andy Burnham's coup against Keir Starmer. He is now working as a policy aide in the Cabinet Office.

As such it seems fair to ask whether his paper -- which explicitly called for the state to take over the ailing company -- is getting a second look inside senior echelons of the government. Government figures have told us that there have been "contingency" conversations about Vistry. Any such chats are more likely to be around how the state would replace the company's role in public-sector schemes. If the business failed, the government would need to find new partners to replace Vistry.

But what about ministers' broader intentions? We had a major clue a month ago when the government set out the allocations in its "Social and Affordable Homes Programme".

Ministers have boasted about the "record" £39bn for SAHP over a decade, although a cynic would -- and should -- point out the spending is heavily backloaded until after the general election.

Vistry was reconfirmed as a "strategic partner" and promised a direct grant of £350mn, which the company described as "the largest award possible in this phase", enabling the delivery of more than 3,000 affordable homes. It said the grant was "significantly in excess" of its previous award under the last programme.

If the government seriously wanted to seize control of Vistry it would be quite weird to have given it the fresh cash injection which should improve its chances of survival. That seemed a major clue that the government is not planning to intervene.

So if the government does not take over Vistry, how does it deliver the dream of creating a "state housebuilder" which has floated around in Labour circles for months? Or has it abandoned it?

Steve Reed, the last housing secretary, was working on his own plans to create a state housebuilder from scratch. The idea was that it could sit within Homes England, the housing quango. But I'm told that Angela Rayner, the current housing secretary, is less keen on that idea. "It's not something we are planning," was my guidance.

Now try this

Is it bad form to promote books by FT colleagues? I recently ripped through Money Men, the personal account of the Wirecard scandal by our colleague Dan McCrum, who withstood unimaginable pressure to bring down a fraudulent German finance company that was once worth $30bn.

The book came out four years ago (sorry Dan) but having finally stopped to read it I would recommend it very highly.

Meanwhile, there's no better way to carbon-date a journalist than by their musical tastes: I'm looking forward to watching Suede and the Manic Street Preachers at the O2 tonight.