[kirklancaster]

Did anyone watch this: Channel 4's Dispatches show: 'Getting Rich From The Housing Crisis'?

Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry faced accusations of hypocrisy last night after it emerged that her husband had made more than £500,000 profit buying a former housing association property for her brother to live in.

Oxford-educated judge Sir Christopher Nugee paid £572,000 for the three-storey Georgian townhouse in Ms Thornberry's Islington constituency as part of a release of social housing stock on to the private market – even though Jeremy Corbyn's party is opposed to such sell-offs.

The property is now worth more than £1 million and is occupied by Ms Thornberry's brother Ben.

Last night, MP Brandon Lewis, chairman of the Conservative Party, said: 'This is wild hypocrisy from Emily Thornberry – she's pocketing the profits from a policy Labour want to scrap. As usual, Labour says one thing and do the other. Labour are against home ownership, they voted against our cut to stamp duty and by abolishing right-to-buy would stop people from achieving the dream of homeownership.'

The deal is highlighted in a Channel 4 investigation into the £400 million sell-off of more than 1,600 housing association properties.

Pictured: Her £3million home



and her brother's £1million home

Sir Christopher bought the housing association property in 2007, two years after his wife became MP for Islington South and Finsbury.

According to the programme, a total of 179 executives in the 50 largest housing associations are earning more than the Prime Minister's £152,000 salary. Over the past five years, the largest 30 associations have made operating profits of more than £13 billion.

Sir Christopher and Lady Nugee – Ms Thornberry's married name – live in a four-storey Victorian house in an exclusive North London crescent worth about £3 million.

Sir Christopher bought the housing association property in 2007, two years after his wife became MP for Islington South and Finsbury. The couple has been married for 26 years. It is not known whether her brother pays rent.

The programme also features Kate Davies, the controversial head of the Notting Hill Genesis social housing organisation, who marked the first anniversary of the Grenfell fire last month – in which eight of her tenants died – by hosting a party to promote her book Making Life More Beautiful. It reveals that Ms Davies, who earned £256,000 last year, has bought a £700,000 luxury second home on the Lower Mill Estate in the Cotswolds.

This is yet more evidence that a pig with its snout in the trough does not HAVE to be a Tory.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/...mand/68438-001