Money flow into pockets of rich; Views of the North.

EVERY time think tanks such as Policy Exchange dream up more ways of getting their client's itchy fingers on public assets, the more they reveal their love of welfare for the rich.

The latest ruse of the forced sale of valuable council houses is altruistically presented as a device to build more council homes.

And yet over a 33-year period, successive governments have pocketed pounds 68bn from council house sales and rent receipts with no new housing in sight.

Such governments have handed pounds 1.3trn to banks to cover the costs of their reckless greed and stupidity, the result of treating houses as assets and not homes.

They have printed pounds 375bn, which is a sum that could have provided countless homes to those who need them, and given it to the same banks.

They have facilitated the scandal noted in a recent report where it has been estimated that up to pounds 2bn per year more is paid out in housing benefit to private landlords renting out former council houses bought under right to buy.

To a politician with any sense of decency, this would constitute a national disgrace. But to the political right, and that includes some in Labour, it is considered a success because public money flows freely to the bottomless pockets of the rich and powerful.

DEREK ROBERTSON, Gateshed