SIR – Hearing of Labour leader Ed Miliband’s latest crackpot idea to ‘regulate’ private tenancies and rents coming so soon after all the portents of doom on the UK economy have been proved wrong by latest figures on growth, employment, inflation, etc, he must be getting some very questionable advice.

Last time it was gas and electric prices to be ‘frozen’, ignoring the fact that this country no longer makes its energy from ‘nationalised’ local mined coal supplying public-owned gas works or power stations, and instead our energy supplies are now largely imported, so subject to world market price fluctuations which cannot be controlled without massive taxpayer-funded subsidy to save suppliers from bankruptcy.

But going back to property rentals, how on earth would any landlord manage his business on ‘fixed’ rents if the Bank of England base rate went up and consequentially his mortgage rate? The only answer is that maintenance, even safety standards might take second place to economic survival, leading to more and more very low grade accommodation.

What Labour ought to have done between 1997 and 2010 was to end the ‘right to buy’ social housing and build more affordable homes.

D S Boyes, Upper Rodley Lane, Leeds