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Is this Labour party for rich investors or hard-working leaseholders? We must make that clear today

14 21
20.01.2026

At cabinet last Tuesday the prime minister reportedly made a powerful case for a government that serves the interests of those struggling to get by. He is right. The cost of living emergency is the issue of our time.

It is a crisis not months, but years in the making. For more than two decades, living standards have been crushed and there is an increasing sense of a country where people cannot get on, of a system stacked against them.

In the face of this deep-set disillusionment, Labour in government has been at its best when challenging the status quo. By standing firm in the face of established interests who have had it their own way for decades – that’s exactly what the landmark Employment Rights Act and Renters’ Rights Act have done, delivering new protections for millions.

And now, this government has a fresh opportunity to show whose side it is on – by ending the scandal of unregulated and unaffordable ground rents faced by leaseholders, as we pledged in our manifesto.

Millions of people suffering from this scandal expect action in the imminent draft leasehold and commonhold reform bill. Many of them are young families who have tried to........

© The Guardian