Things have come to a sorry pass when a Green Party candidate shows a better understanding of basic economic concepts like "opportunity costs" or "cost to the taxpayer" than the Tories (and just about everybody else).
From The Evening Standard:
Describing council rents as "subsidised" brings to mind cash payments to keep them low. But they're only subsidised in the sense that they're paying lower than private rents. It's like saying your energy bill is "subsidised" because you fixed a cheap deal.
Council tenants pay enough to meet the cost of building and maintaining their homes. Any up-front subsidy to build the homes is paid off in the long run through rents and benefit savings. Private rents are so high because the tenants pay the equivalent costs many times over, as landlords profits from rip-off rents and house price rises.
The unfairness isn't well-off council tenants enjoying a low rent that meets landlords' costs, it's private tenants being ripped off. We need rent controls and more social housing, not George Osborne's politics of envy.
Toim Chance, prospective Green Party mayoral candidate.
I'm a land value taxer and see things the other way round. Clearly, social tenants aren't paying the government for the real value of what they 'enjoy', but at least they are paying something, unlike private landowners, be they owner-occupiers, private landlords or land speculators.