Marvin Rees wants to bring in rent capping in Bristol to help renters. This has been tried before but a scandinavian economist said that the best way to destroy a city after carpet bombing is to introduce rent controls! He is holding a “Renters Summit” on 2 March. It sounds grand but all it can achieve at the moment is damage to the climate environment through producing a mass of hot air. The government would need to pass legislation to enable Bristol to introduce such a measure and that is currently unlikely to happen.

When public bodies are unwilling or unable to provide cheap, low cost rented property for people either themselves or through Housing Associations, the only other source of rented property is the private sector. Yet Labour led councils seem intent on being anti landlord.

One tenant on the local news expressed astonishment that a landlord might want to put rents up at the end of a tenancy – you have to ask “did your wages go up this year?”