Towers of London

It all goes back to the sale of council housing, of course. The Housing Benefit racket thus created is vastly more expensive than would be the maintenance of a stock of council housing.

But why, when this certainly does not necessarily apply to a number of other local government services, is your local authority obliged to house you in its own area, no matter how expensive? Never mind in the most expensive wards. Not everywhere in the Kensington & Chelsea Borough can be quite as grand as all that.

Even in the old Derwentside days, never mind now that Durham County Council is unitary, you should have tried getting a council house here in leafy Lanchester, no matter how long you had lived here. Nor, I expect, would Housing Benefit have been able, or be able, to rent you anything privately in Lanchester. Again, no matter how long you have lived here.

The GLA is obviously far too large for the purpose (so is Durham County Council), but should housing in Inner London, at least, be handled at Borough level at all? Is it not time for an Inner London Housing Authority?