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Tories told: adopt some Labour rental policies or risk losing election
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Original Source: Letting Agent Today.
Original Author: Graham Norwood.
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The government has been told is should simply adopt some Labour rental policies or risk losing the next General Election – and the advice has come from an unlikely source.
The Spectator magazine, which is Conservative-supporting and backs a broadly right-wing pro-Brexit line espoused by the current government, comes up with the unlikely advice in an editorial in its current edition.
The editorial says that rising house prices were once seen as an electoral asset but now – as home-owning older voters face seeing their children contemplating a lifetime in rented accommodation – that aspiration poses what the magazine calls “an existential threat” to the Conservatives.
“If you are stuck in a rented flat, frustrated at your inability to afford your own home, the housing policies advanced by Jeremy Corbyn at last year’s General Election are far more appealling – a cap on rent rises, three-year minimum tenancies and a licensing scheme that aims to drive rogue landlords out of business” it says.
The Spectator continues: “Those stuck renting are likely to conclude that the current system is at fault and any change which disfavours landlords will be an improvement. Capitalism will never appeal to those without any capital.”
The magazine then goes on to endorse longer tenancies and rent controls – both policies advocated by Corbyn and Labour in recent years.
“It would cost no public money at all to change the law so that in most cases tenants could look forward to a minimum of three years’ security of tenure with rents controlled for that duration” it advocates.
It then criticises Conservatives who say this would interfere with the free running of the market, adding for good measure that a restrictive planning system means there is no free market for housing anyway.
Concluding that the government risks losing the support of a generation of younger voters and thus losing power, it says: “The Tories have two options – fix the housing market or lose the next election. It’s time to choose.”
