UK House price to earnings ratio vs RPI inflation since 1948

It appears to be agreed that the rate of inflation is to a large extent down to what the government does (or doesn't do) and IMHO, the UK government stokes inflation as hard as it can once house prices peak and then start falling:
It's largely an electoral thing, because UK governments which allow house prices to slide nearly always lose the next election, so even if real house prices are sliding, the government can mask this by cranking up inflation.

Inflation also provides the Homeys with a wonderful justification: "Land is the only thing which beats inflation".

Well yes, of course, because the whole game is rigged. That's about as valid as saying "Solar panels and wind farms are a good investment." From the investor's narrow point of view, they almost certainly are... but only because of subsidies and tax breaks for the investor, which 'everybody else' has to pay in tax or higher electricity costs. Until and unless these forms of electricity generation become cheaper/more efficient than existing forms. It appears that solar panels will reach this stage in a couple of years, but that is a separate topic.

Suffice to say, the government and the subsidy collectors cannot justify the subsidies for solar on the basis that solar produces inflation-beating returns.

If the government were funded out of the rental value of land instead of taxes on earnings and profits, people would then get used to the idea that "Land is the only thing which doesn't beat inflation."

It's quite difficult to stoke inflation in the absence of currency controls, (in fact, currency controls are in themselves a cause of inflation), so after 1980 or so, inflation in the UK was never anywhere near what it had been in the 1970s and hopefully never will be, but that's not for lack of trying (0.5% bank base rate, QE, Funding for Lending, Help to Buy, VAT increases and so on):