Ed Miliband has a lot to learn about "One Nation" ideology

I have been reading Ed Miliband's One Nation speech to the Fabian Society as reported on the New Statesman website http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/ed-milibands-speech-fabian-conference-full-text

Especially the section that looks at the private rental market and has three clauses that sort of comprise a policy.

Rooting out rogue landlords?  Of course.  Everybody wants this to happen.

Stopping families being ripped off by letting agents?  Absolutely.  Letting agents are too close to estate agents, and we know how dodgy they are.

Giving new security to families who rent?  Sounds good, but security at whose expense.  Note Mr Miliband is referring to "families" here, which implies children.  If a family in rented accommodation suffers during the economic downturn and their income drops significantly (perhaps through redundancy or illness) they are going to look to save money.  Currently if they do not keep up with the rent they could be given two months to leave and then have to seek help and housing from social security.  With "security" of tenancy they could simply stop paying the rent and coast along without any undue consequences.  Ultimately presumably even Mr Miliband will acknowledge they should be removed from the property, but by that time many months, perhaps years will have elapsed at the expense of the property owner. 

Socialists will argue that this is good.  Buy to let landlords are bad for society.  Who cares if they lose money.

But what Mr Miliband is actually advocating is that private landlords should take on the burden of housing families who cannot afford to house themselves - this is a duty properly of the state, and to push this onto the private rental sector is immoral.

You also cannot describe as "one nation" a policy that encourages one section of society (tenants who can't afford their rent) to steal from another section of society (private landlords).

Ed Miliband has a lot to learn about "One Nation" ideology.

Perhaps he should devote some time to reading Coningsby.