At first glance, the story might seem trivial: a bureaucratic slip-up with few tangible consequences which will soon recede from the headlines. To be sure, the scandal over Rachel Reeves’s housing situation is no Watergate. Her failure to get the right licence for her south London property, which she began renting out once she moved to Downing Street – potentially putting her in breach of the law as well as the ministerial code – is a minor blip compared with the country’s multiple social crises. The prime minister said the affair was a “regrettable” but “inadvertent” error, while the Tories have called for the chancellor to resign. Yet neither party appears to have grasped its deeper political significance.

Two other senior Labour figures have also recently been pushed out over housing troubles: former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner for underpaying tax on her second home in Hove, and homelessness minister Rushanara Ali for evicting four tenants from her London property and hiking the rent. Why has each of them been foiled by housing?

The irony, of course, is that housing is an area in which Labour has made some progressive reforms. There is valid criticism over the party’s........

© The Guardian