PARTISAN SOCIAL ENGINEERING

That this House notes with interest that Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics, writing in his book entitled Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice, records that in the 1930s the Labour leader of the London County Council pledged to 'build the Tories out of London', launching an extensive public housing programme to boost the numbers of pro-Labour tenants; and further notes the Professor's comment on this pledge is that so successfully was this strategy pursued that by the late 1970s in some inner London areas eighty per cent. of the housing stock was publicly owned.