Dally wrote:
It's let's play political football with the poor time. Both the government and the Labour party are disgraceful.
Newham council have written to 1,179 different housing associations (according to the BBC article quoting the leader of the council) so you would have to be a bit mad to do that to make a political point.
I have to say though the fact they wrote to one in Stoke has highlighted the issue so if that is playing politics with this and got this issue to the fore why is that a bad thing?
Or would you rather it be brushed under the carpet and hope it goes away?
There are 88,000 families in London who are on housing benefit that live in properties with rents above the new government guidelines which means they have to move. Where to?
The problem is obvious. A lack of social housing that the less well off can afford to rent (council houses). Without such property being available the Tories beloved market forces come into play and we end up where we are with private rents through the roof and housing benefit going with it which means we the taxpayer are funding private landlords!
The Tory solution? As Boris has said a "Kosovo-style social cleansing of London".
The sensible solution? Tackle high rents realising first you can't let market forces do that for you because it clearly doesn't work.
As to Snapps he would never countenance private landlords being compelled to take housing benefit tenants so his comments are typical Tory spin.