or the Great British Bugger-up…
Brace yourself, today the lesson is being given by Mr Lamprecht who might be channelling his inner Gordon Ramsey…
So, how to make a Porky Pie? We are going to use an old favourite recipe devised by Mr Johnson. It is a lovely boozy recipe. For the health conscious amongst you, don’t worry! These pies are calorie negative and eating them will actually make you thinner… that is what Mr Johnson’s recipe says, so it must be true. (The truth may be different but hey, they taste so nice no one will care about it!)
To cook, the Porkie Pie is then grilled at a high heat in a Parliament. But do be careful not to expose it to the heat of Parliament for too long otherwise it will turn into Humble Pie. And that isn’t nearly as nice as Porkie Pie.
I have it on the greatest authority that Rishi Sunak loathes Porkie Pie and Keir Starmer loves it.
Ok, ok, I will stop now. It is actually a very serious matter and I shouldn’t make light of it, but you have to laugh otherwise we’ll all sit on a heap and cry at the dreadful state of our Country, the terrible state of the Government and the appalling state of the Planning system and Local Government.
At the centre of all of this is the Trumpian concept of “alternative facts”. I got terribly excited over the weekend at the prospect of Don, donning an orange jump-suit matching his completion on Tuesday but alas, it was an “alternative fact” again.
On this side of the pond, we have our former PM telling us he told us the truth on the facts known to him at the time… or was it simply “alternative facts” that backed up his version of events.
It is very similar in Local Government. You have Councillors sitting on Planning Committees, examining officers’ reports on the facts of an application and then devising some “alternative facts” to suit their agenda and turn applications down… usually to placate the angry NIMBY mob and to get re-elected.
I want to remind you at this stage about that the Levelling Up and Regen Bill contains proposed legislation to penalise developers who don’t build out quickly enough and a register of repeat offenders will be maintained etc.
I think it is about time elected representatives are held to account for their “alternative facts” the come up with for refusing planning permission. For a start, these planning committees going for cheap votes are wasting tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds in causing unnecessary appeals. Wasting hard earned Council Taxpayers money and preventing inward investment and actually also damaging the national economy by delaying mortgages and preventing construction workers from having jobs.
I think some of these committee members need to be held to account for their “alternative facts”. Maybe if there are more penalties for elected representatives they will focus more on the facts and not the “alternative facts”.
Until next week,
Henry
Ps. If you want to glean an insight into what may or may not happen at the Council Elections on 4 May, please follow this link https://theccp.net/council-elections-in-the-spotlight/
