Our new cost-of-living Prime Minister is channelling the zeitgeist with a mission to topple rip-off Britain, and the leasehold mafia are panicking.

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Not even a month in power and riding a wave of retail-friendly policies, Andy Burnham is proving himself far too good at politics not to cancel leasehold, the ultimate subscription scandal that bleeds people dry, causes widespread misery and has logjammed the housing market across England and Wales.

Imagine buying a home, to find that some feudal legacy means you’re a mere tenant in bondage to a landlord, or freeholder. You’re trapped in a contract that lets an investor with a minuscule stake endlessly hike your subscription.

With leasehold, an Englishman’s home is not his castle, but his landlord’s, and public awareness of this grim reality has created the biggest gap between house and flat prices in three decades. Even estate agency Zoopla admitted this week, highlighting the healthier position in Scotland, where flat-owners are not subject to leasehold and control their costs and providers.

In leasehold, junk fees, or “service charges” and “ground rents”, can spiral so high that your home becomes unmortgageable and unsellable. Your choice is either to keep paying the extortion demands on top of your mortgage, or risk having your home seized by your freeholder under........

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