This is not some Dickensian cackle about how to increase pain in society - it’s an observation about reality. In order to reduce rents we should abolish tenants’ rights:

They pay less than the market rent but the trade-off is that they have fewer rights and, often, worse living conditions.

There we have it, from The Guardian no less. Fewer tenants’ rights lead to lower rents. So, if we desire there to be lower rents we should pare back upon, abolish, tenants’ rights.

Now, it is also possible to say that those tenants’ rights are, or should be, inviolable. Which is fine, that’s a choice, a trade off. But that does - see above - mean that rents are going to be higher.

What we can’t do is insist upon those rights and then whine about the height of the rents.

Hmm, sorry, obviously that is possible because some 99% of political discussion is a combination of both of those - joint insistences that tenants should gain even more rights and also that rents should be lower. Which, given the ineluctable logic of the situation is about as useful as shouting at the Sun rising in the east each day.

Our insistence is not in favour of the - admitted and obvious - joy of being able to evict Tiny Tim. It is rather that there is indeed this trade off here and reality says that it’s there, not politics, economics, morals or anything else. It simply is. Therefore it’s something that has to be acknowledged and dealt with, not shouted at.

Want lower rents? Relax tenants’ rights. Want stronger tenants’ rights? Put up with higher rents. To think that it can be otherwise is to be shouting at the universe on the street corner.