Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
IN DEFENDING her support for right to buy Lisa Nandy recently said that “telling working class people they can’t own their own home is just unacceptable.”
If she meant their council home, that rather contradicts what she said at last September’s Labour conference: “The idea of a home for life handed on in common ownership to future generations is an idea worth fighting for.”
If a council home is sold to the tenant then it ceases to be “in common ownership.”
Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON
GLYN ROBBINS celebrates how tenant-led campaigning forced the government to drop Pay to Stay, fixed-term tenancies and council home sell-offs under Cameron — but warns that Labour’s faith in private developers will require renewed resistance


