Rights and wrongs of the Jowell affair

There is bound to be unease among traditional supporters of the Labour party of Keir Hardie with the multiple mortgages of Tessa Jowell.

However, if Hardie had had his way, mortgages would not now be items of high finance. Land-value taxation was the main plank of his 1906 platform, and this would have reduced house prices to an affordable level by attacking the inflationary element: the value of land and not the bricks and mortar.

Rather than as quaint primitives, the original Labour party should be seen as highly sophisticated, with policies we still need.

DBC Reed
Labour Land Campaign