Tories are failing to fix Britain’s housing crisis and can’t take on opponents in order to stand up for the Middle-earners
Every year we announce plans for change, but now we need to really implement them
Home truths
THE housing shortage is Britain’s biggest domestic crisis and the Tories are failing to fix it.
Every year a “radical” solution is announced — but while steps in the right direction, they’re a long way from the real change needed.
Middle-earners simply can’t imagine buying a home.
Ministers haven’t been brave enough to take on the Nimbys, the Bananas (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) and the CPRE, lobbyists who claim to protect the countryside but seem more interested in ensuring house prices remain staggeringly high.
That must come to an end.
Everything from building on the Green Belt — or at least the bits of it near train stations — to housebuilding programmes must be on the table.
There are no sacred cows.
Some Tories think the Government should let 16-year-olds vote, hoping a short-term bribe will buy their support.
If they want to win round the young — most of whom voted Labour last June — they need to solve the housing crisis.
If they don’t stand for a home-owning democracy, what’s the point?
Beeb spender
MORE jaw-dropping details of the BBC’s wild spending emerge by the day.
In a court case which revealed that host Christa Ackroyd — no, us neither — has been using dodgy tax practices, it also became apparent that she had a £3,000 clothing allowance and appears to have been given another 40 grand to stop writing a newspaper column.
There’s your licence fee at work, folks.
But when the BBC knows it’ll be able to take £150 out of your pocket every year, why wouldn’t they?
It’s time Auntie joined the real world.
We fail on jails
OUR prisons are in real trouble.
They’re designed to do two things: keep law-abiding Brits safe from criminals and rehabilitate those who can become full members of society again.
At the moment they’re failing on both.
A shortage of cash, failure to follow through on reforms and overcrowding is turning our jails into crime factories, drug dens and hotbeds of radicalisation.
The new Justice Secretary David Gauke has a big job on his hands.
End swansong
NEW stats show a third of small music venues are worried about their future.
Our musical heritage is one of the things that make Britain truly Great — from the Beatles to Adele.
But if we want more Mick Jaggers and Kate Bushes, they need places to play. Hit by business rates hikes and licensing curbs, too many clubs are shutting.
Time for councils to change their tune.