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London's housing crisis is rooted in a neo-liberal urban project to recommodify and financialise housing and land in a global city. But where exactly is the crisis heading? What future is being prepared for London's urban dwellers? How can we learn from other country and city contexts to usefully speculate about London's housing future? In this paper, we bring together recent evidence and insights from the rise of what we call ‘global corporate landlords’ (GCLs) in ‘post-crisis’ urban landscapes in North America and Europe to argue that London's housing crisis—and the policies and processes impelling and intervening in it—could represent a key moment in shaping the city's long-term housing future. We trace the variegated ways in which private equity firms and institutional investors have exploited distressed housing markets and the new profitable opportunities created by states and supra-national bodies in coming to the rescue of capitalism in the USA, Spain, Ireland and Greece in response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. We then apply that analysis to emerging developments in the political economy of London's housing system, arguing that despite having a very low presence in the London residential property market and facing major entry barriers, GCLs are starting to position themselves in preparation for potential entry points such as the new privatisation threat to public and social rented housing.

Recent events linked to outsourcing such as the Grenfell Tower disaster in June 2017 and the collapse of Carillion in 2018 have again highlighted the challenges of maintaining democratic accountability of government expenditure where public services are contracted out to private companies. Although not the only focus of policy debate, pressure is building from both parliamentarians and the Information Regulator to extend UK information laws to the rapidly expanding number of private companies holding major public sector contracts. However, there remains a lack of evidence as to the nature and extent of this accountability gap and the implications for legislative reform. This article presents findings on non-compliance from a comprehensive field experiment using Freedom of Information requests on the Private Finance Initiative model of outsourcing. We demonstrate the limits of Freedom of Information as a tool for accountability and argue both legislative and regulatory reform are needed to enable proper public scrutiny of outsourced public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abolishing 'modern slavery' has now achieved international policy consensus. The most recent UK initiative – the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (MSA) – includes amongst other aspects tougher prison sentencing for perpetrators and the creation of an independent anti-slavery commissioner to oversee its implementation. However, drawing on research into forced labour among people seeking asylum in England, this article argues that when considered alongside the UK government's deliberate creation of a 'hostile environment' towards migrants, not least in the Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016, state action to outlaw modern slavery is flawed, counter-productive and disingenuous. We show how the MSA focuses only on the immediate act of coercion between 'victim' and 'criminal', ignoring how the hostile state vulnerabilises migrants in ways that compel their entry into and continued entrapment within severe labour exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]