How much money will it take to make Tony Blair happy? Given the opportunity, most people would surely rest after a decade of running the country. Blair, on the contrary, appears to have spent every waking hour focused on amassing as much wealth as possible, seemingly intent on increasing his worth to match that of a small country. It should come as no surprise that the Blairs have thrown themselves into the property market, since no dollar is too dirty for them. Blair did, after all, give paid public relations advice to a Kazakh dictator after the police shot 15 protestors dead.

Tony and Cherie Blair's property empire worth estimated £27m Read more

So of course the Blairs have jumped on the property gravy train, snapping up more than two dozen flats in Manchester through a company Cherie and one of their sons, Euan, own; passing on properties from Cherie to her children as gifts, thus avoiding stamp duty, and ultimately amassing £27m worth of property, much of which is let out and has all already risen in value.

While house prices rise and first-time buyer rates remain static, using wealth to buy property is far more stable an investment than stocks. The financial affairs of the Blairs and the property market tell us an extraordinary amount about the housing crisis. Guardian research revealed earlier this week that two-bed rentals are out of reach of most people on average incomes in many parts of the country. In the areas where homes are more affordable, and starting a family possible, there are often employment issues.

While in office, Blair’s insistence that Labour was committed to lifting children out of poverty coexisted uneasily with Peter Mandelson’s boast that he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. You can point at child tax credits and SureStart centres as fervently as you want, but the housing crisis has impoverished millions and means that 100,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. Focusing on mass social-housebuilding might have circumvented house price spikes, but those spikes were helpful when it came to convincing people Labour were the party of aspiration.

The housing crisis tells you a lot about British society: springing from a pathological middle class obsession with home ownership, the spike in houses prices is seen as earned, not incidental: most people now expect to make a profit on housing, and the fact people like the Blairs plough cash in as an investment should be a warning sign.

But the Blairs’ property empire also shows how class replicates itself. The Blairs, two lawyers, saw themselves as the archetypal middle class family, despite being far, far wealthier. The wealthy always assume they are far poorer than they actually are in relation to the population. Defenders of the Blairs point out that most middle class families with the means now help their children on to the property ladder. However, few actually hand their children a property empire: a handful of buildings that enable them to profit from other people’s financial situation. The Blairs, if they ever were middle class, aren’t now: they’re part of the super-rich, and gifting their children multiple properties ensures the entire family will remain so.

Is the Blairs’ £27m property empire relevant to public anger about the housing crisis? | Head to head Read more

Much has been written about the plight of millennials, but relatively little on how the cost of housing means that while middle class kids need a helping hand to afford a home of their own, young working class people can work as hard as they like, but will never afford the downpayment on a house. In previous decades, a family home, rented from the council was a secure and stable place for many young couples to start families – that private rents are so high and social housing dwindling is bound to have an effect on the ages of first-time parents. But Britain’s property obsession entrenches poverty and social exclusion at one end of the class spectrum, and boosts the wealth and profits of the small number at the opposite end of the scale.

Revisionism insists that Blair has been mistreated by current public opinion, that history will gloss over the Iraq war and tuition fees. But he remains unpopular, and is profiting from a profile built up while claiming to be in the service of the British people. The Blairs have turned profiting from others’ misery into an art form now: Cherie is currently working with private landlords to challenge the government’s changes to tax relief which could see the profits of landlords fall ever so slightly. It’s a toothless idea anyway, and does nothing to solve the housing crisis, but how fitting that the landlords have managed to find one of their own to lead the charge.

Ultimately, the Blairs’ actions reveal how little much of what Tony said in office holds true. Housing is possibly the biggest single perpetuator of inequality in the UK: anyone with a conscience would think twice before capitalising on other people’s misery. Perhaps the Blairs simply sold theirs.

Join the Guardian Housing Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GuardianHousing) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social housing news and views.