I write my column this month from my desk at home in London rather than at a table looking over the beach in Cannes with the rest of the property world. I was happy not to go this year as I’ve never really enjoyed it but, looking at Twitter and Instagram, part of me wished I was there, where, despite its party reputation, real issues are debated and real business is done.

Reading Peter Murray’s view in the Evening Standard, I was interested to note that, yet again, London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, was a no-show. Word has it that he worries it’s just too politically sensitive for him to be seen “on a jolly” in the sunny South of France with monied property developers when there are tens of thousands of Londoners who can’t afford a decent place to live.

At a time when we need to do all we can to find a solution to our housing crisis what can we do to counter this idea and find a way to encourage him to think it’s a place where he can be fighting for his constituents, finding solutions to the problems we know he cares greatly about?

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