SO, after 40 years, the Government is finally admitting that the privatisation of the rail network was not an unqualified success and is stressing that it's a sign of strength to be prepared to confess when you got things wrong. Excellent. So could we now look again at the 'Right To Buy' policy which has created the greatest housing crisis in this country's history.

A flagship policy of Mrs Thatcher's first term which led to almost two million good quality, well maintained, council houses with sensible rents being sold off with huge discounts to existing tenants in the name of creating a property owning democracy. Except it didn't work.

Almost half of those properties are now in the hands of private landlords who have either doubled the rents or more likely converted them into bedsits stuffed full of students. And it is still going on.

Last year, York lost another 45 homes from its council stock. Houses which will never become available to families on the waiting lists. And the money raised is never ploughed back into housing. England in the 1970s had a housing system which worked.

Many people do not want to sink all their money into buying a house.

If good quality homes were available at reasonable rents, Joseph Rowntree's suggestion was never more than 20 per cent of the weekly wage, we would have a system far preferable to what exists currently.

So come on Boris. Another policy to overhaul.

David Lindsey,

Langley House,

Dodsworth Avenue, York