Sadiq Khan has once again called on the Government to allow him to impose rent controls. Co-conspirators will no doubt be aware of the implications of this policy; in Berlin and Ireland they’ve decreased supply, increased demand and were circumvented by informal ‘black market’ landlord-tennant arrangements; in Scotland they immediately halted the development of 11,000 new affordable homes. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result…

Sadiq has clearly not been keeping pace with developments in his own pet policy area. On Good Morning Britain this morning he actively cited the Scottish rent control rollout as an example of where it’s been enforced to prop up his argument. He even claimed credit for it on Labour’s behalf. To reiterate, this is the same policy that prevented a £1 billion housing project to help house 11,000 of the country’s worst-off. Thankfully Guido predicts even this ideologically sloppy government won’t be giving him the powers any time soon…