Lisa Nandy has been out on the media round this morning, promoting Labour’s proposed leasehold reform, and was forced to confront her own contradictory record on housebuilding. On Times Radio this morning, Stig Abell first presented Nandy with a fitting nickname, given her opposition to development in Manchester:
“STUDIO: So you’re going to be called Lisa NIMBY here, aren’t you? Because you had a chance not to be a NIMBY, and you were a NIMBY?
LN: Wow. How long did it take you to come up with that one?
STUDIO: It sounds a bit like Nandy.
LN: Yeah, well done.”
It shouldn’t have taken Stig long to come up with Nandy’s nickname, given Guido used it three weeks ago…
Lisa then launched a defence of her confused position. Whilst claiming the need for housing was “obvious” she defended her decision to block building – when she explicitly called for Wigan’s planned housing stock to be reduced. She then deployed all the usual NIMBY buzzwords, praising the “beautiful area of natural beauty… well used and loved by local people” with “lots of wildlife“. What she doesn’t mention is that that in her letter opposing the development, she explicitly opposed building on the Green Belt – not just for this project. Today, Nandy says she wants to build on the Green Belt, she previously spelt out that “It is wrong to consider Green Belt land for development” …
NIMBY Nandy’s building bewilderment didn’t end there. She claimed to be “on the side of the builders” whilst at the same time wanting “local authorities and combined authorities across the country to have a much bigger role”. In her Times Red Box piece today, she also called for involving communities “at the start” of planning applications – which sounds awfully similar to the government’s own policy. Once again, Labour’s housing policy is full of contradictions.
Guido can exclusively reveal the leaked line-up for the launching-in-the-summer Times Radio. After six years on the BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, Aasmah Mir (who has been widely expected to be joining the new venture) will be co-presenting the new station’s staple Breakfast show alongside Stig Abell. The line-up looks like it is tilted towards a very middle class, Remainer Radio 4 audience…
Abell and Mir will be joined on the station by the BBC’s John Pienaar, The Times’ Matt Chorley, the BBC’s Phil Williams, the BBC’s Carole Walker, and Mariella Frostrup, who in 2005 was voted the sexiest female voice on television. The full daily line-up is:
Congratulations to Stig on winning the plum breakfast slot. As the station’s launch editor that must have been a really tough interview process. No sign so far of heavily tipped to join Tom Newton Dunn.
UPDATE 27/04: The Times announces this morning Cathy Newman is also on board to anchor their Friday drivetime show, and Radio 4’s World at One’s Luke Jones will co-present Friday-to-Sunday breakfast with Panorama’s Jenny Kleeman.
