Another letter.

Another letter has been published today:

Dear Friend,

an election must be coming. Jeremy Corbyn has been appearing in print around the shop calling for rent controls as a means of curbing the housing crisis. Rent controls, though, have never worked, and never will. They are an attempt to fix the market, and market rates will out, with landlords either letting their stock go to wreck or withdrawing from the market to protect their profit rates.

The only solution to the housing crisis is to build enough homes for all; but the market is patently failing to do this, and never will. If there were enough homes for all, how could a landlord collect rent?

No one can help taking up space, or needing shelter, and no-one should have it denied them because of market whims. Just as no-one can help falling ill, and should not have health care denied them because of market whims. We need housing free at the point of use.

The only way we can get this is through the common ownership of the wealth of the world. Anything less will always see profit (and rents) put before people's need.

Bill Martin Socialist Party Parliamentary Candidate for Islington North.

In the Islington Gazette no online letters page, but there is an e-edition here.