LETTERS Confiscation corner
Sir: The ill-mannered and poorly argued letter from Sir George Young (27 Febru- ary) is a reminder of how wise Mrs Thatch- er was to keep this latter-day Che Guevara from high office.
'This is not confiscation. It is liberation,' he writes of leasehold enfranchisement, as if he was addressing a band of partisans in the Sierra Maestra. The truly squalid aspect of the Housing and Urban Development Bill lies in its populism. Sir George is acqui- escing in a profoundly un-Conservative act of State-aided expropriation for the simple reason that it is popular.
In his sordid political calculus the hand- ful of great London landlords expropriated under this legislation are far outweighed by the 750,000 leaseholders living in flats and the unknown number of householders who will enjoy a tax-free windfall at the expense of the freeholder. No amount of blather from Sir George about 'fair market value', compensation for injury and expense and the splitting of the 'marriage value' between landlord and leaseholder can con- ceal this base truth. The sale of freeholds under his legislation is a forced transaction, and therefore devoid of justice.
Sir George and his colleagues will doubt- less receive their reward at the polls. In a democracy, enriching the many at the expense of the few is good politics. Nobody knows this better than Dudley Fishburn, the main proponent of the Housing and Urban Development Bill on the Conserva- tive back-benches. As the Member of Par- liament for Kensington, a marginal seat in a part of London where leasehold tenure is widespread, and as a tenant of the Grosvenor Estate himself, he stands to gain both politically and personally.
Dominic Hobson 62 Manchuria Road, London SW11
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