With Labour riding high in the polls, the party is doing its best to make itself look like a credible choice for government. In addition to purging the loony left, wooing big business and taking lessons from the blob, they’re now even ditching their own unworkable policies. One such cause is market failure-inducing rent controls. Last night on LBC, Rachel Reeves slammed Sadiq Khan’s favourite pet housing policy:

“If you take Scotland, for example, they’ve got rent controls and yet Edinburgh and Glasgow are two cities in the UK that have had some of the highest increases in rent. So these things don’t always work“.

At least someone in Labour isn’t committed to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Curiously, Reeves also denied that the party had performed yet another U-turn on the policy, claiming:

“I don’t think under Keir’s leadership, rent controls have ever been our policy. So I don’t think there’s a U-Turn there”. 

This may come as news to Lisa Nandy who, just months ago, called for council leaders to be given the powers to freeze rents. A reminder, as it clearly slipped Rachel’s mind, Lisa Nandy is the Shadow Cabinet Minister responsible for housing policy.