DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain
by Brett Christophers
(Verso, £20)
THE PRIVATISATION of British land has delivered nothing that the government claimed it would — value for public money, new jobs and homes and more “efficient” land allocation.
Instead, in a four-decades process that began under Margaret Thatcher, it has transformed Britain into a rentier economy, in which the vast majority of private wealth is held as land and property. Industrial Britain has become landlord Britain, with many of our barons hiding offshore.
Can Andy Burnham’s programme deliver a productive economy – or merely a softer version of capitalism, asks VINCE MILLS
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises


