A few weeks ago, Ian Hills claimed to support Defend Council Housing's campaign against the privatisation of council housing.

He even attended our parliamentary lobby, aimed at getting the Government to fund council housing properly.

On the way home, he announced he was standing as a candidate for the UK Independence Party and is now in favour of "tenant control" - otherwise known as Arm's Length Management Organisations (ALMO), in which tenants' representatives are answerable to the board, not the tenants.

Defend Council Housing has always opposed this as undemocratic, inefficient and expensive - public money should be invested in public services and not in preparing the ground for privatisation.

Once the council hands over responsibility for housing to an Arm's Length Management Organisation, it can never take it back no matter how badly the organisation performs.

This is explained in a free news sheet available from DCH on 01273 608704.

Is Ian Hills going to campaign for the council and against us when it proposes handing our homes over to an ALMO? Who is the hypocrite here?

-Ruth Arundell, Defend Council Housing, Tillstone Street, Brighton