The first is the plan to create a million more homeowners - it sounds great in principle, but the effect a million less homes available to rent. And affordable rented accommodation is already in very short supply in areas like Highbury.
The second problem is that their pledge to build new homes doesn't match their record over the past eight years. As Polly Toynbee and David Walker note in their assessment of Labour's record Better or Worse:
under Labour "fewer homes were being built, both private and social, than for years. Not surprisingly, the number of families accepted by councils as homeless and in need of emergency accommodation more than doubled from 40,000 families in 1997 to 90,000 in 2004 - and these were only those at the extremity of housing need."
"Spiralling house prices meant fewer people now moved out of the shrinking amount of council and social housing to make way for others because fewer of them could now afford to make the jump into buying their own homes."
Green councillors across the country are securing high levels of affordable housing in new developments - in fact a landmark case won when the Greens co-ran Oxford City Council means that local authorities can now force developers to include 50% affordable housing in new developments.
As a Green councillor I'll be working for a 50% afforable housing target in Islington.
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