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I'm open minded on rent controls, but wasn't necessarily advocating them. My preference is for new build and use supply to regulate price bubbles by meeting demand. I am however a bit skeptical about warnings that the world will fall down if some kind of regulator sets a ceiling price. The same people who told us this will happen are probably the same people who suggested that the national minimum wage would lead to a million people becoming unemployed. The notion of telling businesses how much they have to pay staff is much more radical concept than a domestic rent threshold. Since then of course, the conservatives have adopted the support of the NMW as a plank of their policy. I'm equally conscious (though cynical as regards what teeth they bear) than a great many industries are subject to a price regulator, albeit I conceed that a number of companies have pulled out of building the next generation of nuclear power stations, albeit this is because they're not being offered enough subsidy to do so! Free markets aren't always as free as they appear. Price controls exist in the higher education sector too and yet university applications continue to rise

The German model is possibly worth looking at later. What would the UK consumer do with extra money in their pocket? We don't know of course, but we can take a few educated guesses and a lot of it will be driven by age cohorts and how much extra. The Germans can more safely rely on their population to buy German products because they're high quality and it makes strategic sense. You could of course try and argue that because we manufacture a lot of crap, we're better of requiring our population to hand their disposable income over to finance companies and defend our jobs through this industry! - probably for another day