Steve Morgan is upset. No, let’s be honest, he is livid. “What the f**k?” he splutters. “What is going on?” 

Speaking in the office he has built at his 1,000-acre Carden Hall estate, the 70-year-old founder of £2.1bn turnover Redrow is trying to get his head round why the current Conservative government is – in his words – “so anti-housebuilding”. A £1m-plus donor to the Tories under Boris Johnson’s leadership, Morgan probably has more reason than most to feel let down by the current administration.

“People who, with their grey-haired cronies, want to draw up the drawbridge, because their view is ‘bugger you, I’m alright Jack’,” he says of the latest ministerial team, exasperation clear in his still-strong Liverpudlian accent. “I call them my Marie Antoinette politicians: ‘Let them eat cake’. They’re turning their back on the young people of the country.”

But Morgan, who left listed housebuilder Redrow for the second and final time four years ago this month, has got other things to think about in addition to the government’s perceived capitulation to anti-development sentiment. Next year will be 50 years since the Garston-born entrepreneur set up Redrow with a £5,000 loan from his dad, and he still retains a significant stake in the firm.

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