The workhouse building in Cleveland Street

• IT isn’t ironic that a charity developing a workhouse that inspired Charles Dickens is reneging on its promise to provide affordable homes for its own staff, it is utterly disgusting, (‘Please, sir…’ twist over homes plan, June 24).

But, as your report details, the UCLH charity is not the only building developer breaking their promises. They all are, with impunity, thanks to our lax planning laws, soon to be slackened even further by the present bunch of Tory incompetents running the country into the ground.

And, while I am happy to denigrate developers, the real cause of this disastrous situation lies higher up: at the failure of successive incompetent Tory governments of the last decade (and New Labour before them) to do what was desperately needed, build more affordable homes for the people who make London and the rest of the country work, not “cash boxes in the sky” for foreign billionaires.

But I can’t let Labour off the hook: does Sir Keir Starmer have any policies for changing the way this country works, or is he too busy chasing every stupidly incompetent mistake from Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Priti Patel and their fellow nasties?

There’s plenty to work on after he has developed some ideas to “take back control” of the housing market, where even the meanest property in London costs 20 times the average wage, and every single developer is reneging on promises for so-called affordable housing.

He could then start work on policies for rebuilding a proper care system, dismantled by successive governments since the NHS “cradle to the grave” system was created by Labour in the aftermath of World War II.

Next he could look at policies for better working conditions, job-security, and wages, for the millions of workers on low pay, such as Uber / Deliveroo / etc drivers.

And if that’s not enough, how about drawing people’s attention to the awful mess now unfolding as Brexit bites, damaging every sector of British life, from entertainers to flower-sellers?

I realise Sir Keir probably doesn’t have the courage to say that a major policy of the next Labour government will be to rejoin the European Union as soon as possible, but at least he could start preparing the ground by telling people how Brexit is a major factor in the problems they are facing, which will get worse in the years ahead.

There’s lots of work to be done. It is time for Labour to stop fiddling while home burns!

DAVID REED, NW3