Marc Da-Silva asks, who is the new housing minister?

After five days of political wrangling following an indecisive outcome at last week's general election, a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government was formed on Tuesday.

We now know who the prime minister is, along with a range of other top cabinet jobs, but the new housing minister has still not yet been named. Perhaps the shortage of new build homes and high number of people on housing waiting lists are not of pressing concern to the new administration.

The fact that the housing minister appears to have lost the right to attend cabinet meetings speaks volumes.

The frontrunners for the job are presumably Conservative housing spokesman Grant Shapps, a previous guest at the What House? Awards, and the Liberal Democrat housing spokeswoman Sarah Teather. The two of them are probably scrapping it out in a smoke-filled room somewhere in Westminister.

Away from prying eyes, perhaps the new coalition is not as rosy as the Clegg-Cameron united front would suggest.

It's decision time.

Tories Vs Lib Dems:

The new government is be tasked with creating more much needed new homes and affordable homes, but a great deal of cross-party compromise is necessary first. Here is a summary of what the Conservative and Liberal Democrat housing manifestos proposed:

Conservatives
The Tories want to abolish all homebuilders targets but offer council tax incentives to local councils, although it is not clear what impact this will have on existing council taxes in each borough, despite the party's insistence that rates will be frozen next year.

The Conservatives want to hand greater powers back to local authorities, permitting Local Housing Trusts to control the construction of new homes in their local areas. This would allow for greater community feedback and potential local referendums.

The party also wants to scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes up to 250,000 ‘permanently' and is getting rid of Home Information Packs.

Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems want to scrap regional homebuilding targets to permit local authorities to determine how many and what type of new homes are required in their area.

The party also wants to construct thousands of new affordable homes to rent; ensure council homes sold under Right to Buy are replaced with more new build homes, by allowing local authorities to keep all of the capital receipts from Right to Buy sales.

The Lib Dems proposed to create a new system of Safe Start mortgages that protect homebuyers from negative equity; offer loans for people seeking to invest in green-friendly renewable home energies. They also wanted to introduce a so-called ‘mansion tax' for homes worth over £2m, the idea has now been scrapped.