Sick of this inactivity on social housing

Published: 15, April 2010

• I READ Glenda Jackson’s Forum article (Political parties are not the same when it comes to social housing, April 8), and found myself utterly incensed. 
Quite clearly she hasn’t spent enough time addressing the serious issues of social housing and Decent Homes during the 18 years she has been our MP.
She talks nationally of the priority of the £8billion cost of Decent Homes initiative, but omits to mention that Camden still haven’t seen a penny of it; are still owed £283million; and are having to find these funds from local coffers. 
If it is only at this late stage, in her words, that she deems “the focus now is to deal with what is a crisis”; there can be few reasonable explanations of why she has waited to bring her thoughts to our attention on building housing. The main explanation, I would guess, is that she has finally realised that the “social housing” electorate, who have been, and are, stuck in unsuitable, overcrowded accommodation, are sick of her inactivity. 
It is all very well for her to try to shift the blame historically onto the Conservatives. However she must think us stupid if she thinks she can get away with this, when a significant part of her period in office was when Labour were in control of local council. Did she do anything over this period to start to resolve the housing issues she talks about? No! 
I hope the electorate will see through this and read the Labour manifesto, which does not appear to have proposals to solve this crisis.
FLO CUBBIN
Liberal Democrat Candidate for Swiss Cottage ward