3rd September 2021
Five to four field: Place your bets now The Black Horse is a bit of a dark horse. Lloyds Bank if getting into the housing business as a ‘large private landlord’. The main reason for this is that interest rates are so low. In other […]
27th August 2021
Should our politicians be allowed holidays? I know this is not a popular sentiment, but I have a grudging sympathy for poor old Dominic Raab. The man has had a hell of a year. He had to stand in for Boris. He was effectively the […]
20th August 2021
Pump up the Heat I am old enough to remember when the biggest threat to the planet was global cooling. Yep. In The early 1970, the big fear was that we would all be living in igloos with huskies instead of Hondas in the driveway. […]
13th August 2021
Musk and the Moaning Millennials When young people (almost everyone I know) moan that their new home hasn’t got room to swing a cat, I tell them to shut the f*** up or I’ll report them to the RSPCA. Then, I point to one of […]
6th August 2021
Beauty This year a new word has entered the planning lexicon (jargon, Madam): beautiful. 17 It was used 17 times by Robert Jenrick the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in his revolutionary paper to shake up the UK planning system. […]
30th July 2021
Laws should be ‘of their time’ Oh for those long summer days of the interwar years. It was a simpler world then. In 1938, you could drive out to a nice country pub, knock back a half-a-dozen pints of strong ale and a couple […]
23rd July 2021
Don’t make an exhibition of yourself It’s late November. It is pelting down outside. There’s no heating in the parish hall. Three people in smart suits are looking bored. One is pinned against the wall being talked to aggressively by a small group of angry […]
16th July 2021
England’s green and pleasant belt It’s just over 1,100 days away. In our world of politics that’s a blink of an eye. So, what will the next Labour government *checks notes* do about, say, the green belt. But there won’t be a Labour government, […]
9th July 2021
Could you be a politician? Seven Secrets for Success Over the past, a-hem, let’s say many, years, I have hired politicians of all colours. There was the mad, the bad, the sad, chisellers, liars, fantasists, losers, winners, crooks (you know who you are)… I […]
2nd July 2021
Head for the hills: are cities dying? At the end of every world crisis, be it a pandemic or war, there is always a time for reflection. What have we learnt and what can we do better? Too often the answer is SFA. The […]