Zarah Sultana’s recent brave criticisms of Labour from 2015 to 2020, including Brexit triangulation, IHRA capitulation and insufficient fighting spirit, have ruffled feathers but started an essential discussion, writes ANDREW MURRAY

RATHER than proposing to increase the financial pressure on tenants with above-inflation rent increases, councils should be seeking the support of tenants in a campaign for the government to fund Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) sufficiently to maintain and improve existing homes.
Support for the government’s proposal for five years of above-inflation rent increases for council and housing association tenants is almost universal with housing associations and is even supported by some councils that have signed the document Securing the Future of Council Housing.
London councils are calling for 10 years of CPI plus 1 per cent. Clearly, councils are short of the funding they need to maintain and improve their homes. Yet above-inflation increases are, in our view, short-sighted and counter-productive. It will further impoverish already poor tenants who do not have their rent covered by housing benefit.



