Sir Keir’s wrapped up his big keynote speech on Labour’s new “5 Missions for a Better Britain”. We got the missions trailed in advance: the economy, NHS, crime, education and clean energy. When the missions were released, Guido noted the lack of any mention of house building, though gave Starmer the benefit of the doubt given housing could easily come under ‘the economy.’
The speech came and went, and there was absolutely no mention of housebuilding. Guido double-checked by searching the “Check Against Delivery” speech emailed out by Labour press: nothing.
Thankfully, others are getting on with promoting housebuilding. Baroness Fox gave a great speech in the Lords last night, pointing out there’s no point to levelling up legislation if the bill doesn’t commit to a housing programme:
“Extraordinarily, there is no mention of increasing the supply of houses or of targets to build more homes at a time when we need that to happen with missionary zeal if we are to stand a chance of making levelling up more than a slogan.”
“The hugely impressive housing campaign group Priced Out, staffed by young people who are passionate about housing, explains this well. It says:
‘The affordability of housing is a significant concern for millions of people. If we don’t fix the root cause of this problem, we will continue to ruin lives and futures’.”
“We must acknowledge that the many blocks to housebuilding are political choices. Increasingly, planning decisions and policy decisions are likely to prioritise fashionable eco concerns over citizens’ needs, prosperity, development or growth. Indeed, green ideological restrictions on housebuilding are now giving old-fashioned NIMBYist concerns a veneer of progressive righteousness.”
Meanwhile, Trussite Brandon Lewis has launched a new report with Policy Exchange today, calling for an overhaul of planning laws to build new homes, which would provide economic “rocket boosters”.
The PX report estimates that building an additional 100,000 houses per year could boost the economy by £17.7 billion, while saving £10 billion in housing benefit by increasing social housing. Politically, Labour has no incentive to cave in to NIMBYs given their lack of home county representation. Unfortunately today’s speech indicates we should expect very little change in the current anti-building settlement should they come to power…
Read Policy Exchange’s new report in full here.
Claire Fox has slammed the House of Lords for their Remainer hypocrisy, as they complained the EU Retained Law Bill gives the government too much power, while having voiced no constitutional objection to the EU law bodies creating the powers without any such scrutiny.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are problems with this bill. The government may have missed an opportunity to use the retained law issue as a spur for democratic renewal… but to note that what ever the anti-democratic measures of the skeleton bill, there is a popular mandate behind the bill’s intent.”
“Many of the core objections we’ve heard today seems to be driven by a failure of imagination. My Lords have cited professional bodies, NGOs, Employers Organisations, Trade Unions Leaders, Lawyers, all who appear unable to imagine social and economic progress happening without retained EU laws.”
The 4000 retained EU laws were put on the UK statute books without members of this unelected house crying democracy. Earlier we were assured it was all ok, because – as one noble lord explained – there were special behind-closed-doors committees that scrutinised them. No mind that no matter how many British voters might object to any one of those laws, there was nothing, zilch they could do.”
Fox also called out the TUC line of argument that says without retained EU law, UK workers will be at the mercy of the evil rightwing Tories. The first time, she points out, she heard about ‘minimum service requirements’ during strikes was when they were being “eulogised in the European Parliament’. All very good points…
Steve Bray has been doing what he does and making an nuisance of himself. On a Today Programme Brexit debate last night, Bray repeatedly heckled from the audience – reheating the old classics of “you lied!” and “Tories out!”. Eventually, his anti-Brexit tirades became too much even for the BBC to put up with and he was booted out. Where’s Lee Anderson when you need him…
Thankfully, Jacob Rees-Mogg was on hand to provide some insightful and characteristically polite running commentary:
“Steve, it’s nice of you to come and join us. For those of you listening at home, Steve Bray stands outside the House of Commons everyday shouting. I’ve said to him many times, he should stand for election if he wants to get his arguments across and he is trying to disrupt us this evening. He’s now being taken out so that we can carry on with discussion.”
Bray has also been quick to get his own side of the story out there. On Twitter, for the few co-conspirators not blocked by him, he’s posted a picture of his bruised nose, described how he was “kneed in the balls” and admitted his “ribs and right side are very painful”. Bray’s beef with the BBC might not end there, while he accepts the corporation was correct to kick him out, he claims “the violence and manner was totally out of order, uncalled for & illegal”. On this rare occasion, Guido’s inclined to back the BBC.
UPDATE: Co-conspirators can watch Bray’s Bruising for themselves here.
Despite tanking ratings over an increasingly turgid and sterile show, Claire Fox provided a rare watchable Question Time moment last night while standing up to the Labour Welsh health minister. Boris’s recent addition to the Lords accused Labour of treating the private sector with contempt, pointing to the many hard-working hospitality and gig economy workers who also supported the country through the pandemic, who – unlike their public sector peers – have almost no job security at the moment.
Baroness Fox calmly explained to the virtual audience that Rishi’s ‘public sector pay freeze’ has nought to do with the “Evil Tories hate the public sector” caricature coming from Labour. Claire’s come a long way since her Revolutionary Communist Party days…
On tonight’s LIVE with LITTLEWOOD – at the earlier start time of 5.45pm:
Host Mark Littlewood will be joined by Conservative MP Ben Bradley; the Academy of Ideas’ Claire Fox; commentator and YouTuber Mahyar Tousi; journalist Benedict Spence; The Freedom Association’s Andrew Allison and IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon.
Join us LIVE for the issues that matter – TONIGHT at 5.45PM – HERE or on YouTube.
Labour MPs are currently incensed at the idea of Brexit-backing former MEP Claire Fox joining the Remainer-stuffed House of Lords, spending the last few days flagging up Fox’s denial of the Bosnian genocide and refusal to condemn the IRA’s Warrington bombing.
These are the same Labour MPs, however, who spent years arguing to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister – a man who cheered the IRA and attacked the UK for “intervening in a ‘genocide’ that never really existed in Kosovo”. Genocide denial and IRA appeasement are only bad if you’re not a Labour politician, apparently.
Some of Labour’s top hypocrites include:
It is striking how many of these MPs have only been Labour MPs since the Corbyn era. They all campaigned to make Corbyn Prime Minister. The hypocrisy is palpable…
