This letter, written by local TUSC candidate (for Endlebury ward) Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, was published in today’s issue of the Guardian.

John Harris ridicules as outdated the left-of-Labour calls for a mass house-building programme to solve the housing crisis (The Tories own the future – the left is trapped in the past, Comment, 3 April).
But a new report predicts that London will be “crippled” if there is no solution to housing disaster. What would Harris offer to the private tenant whose landlord is demanding a rent increase on his one-bedroom flat in Walthamstow from £800 to £1200? This is what is old-fashioned, stuck in the pre-council-house past where landlords’ greed was the only factor determining rents.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition calls for mass building of council homes, for trade union rates of pay in the jobs created in the building and refurbishment schemes, and for rent control, with rent councils to set the cap. To most people, that’s a programme that addresses the future.
Sarah Sachs-Eldridge
London