What the Tories got wrong on housing

Sir Keir Starmer may be our first atheist prime minister, but his manner in parliament resembles that of what, in House of Lords terminology, is called a ‘Most Reverend prelate’. There is a lot of sonority about serving others, disagreeing well etc. These are good sentiments but, when trying to be good, ‘show, not tell’ is better. Adopting an archiepiscopal tone, a political leader is quickly tripped up. For example, Sir Keir wants to drive peers aged over 80 out of the Lords, thinking this conducive to the public good; and yet, as I write, he is having his first much-prized bilateral with Joe Biden, who is six years older than the Nato alliance whose 75th anniversary western leaders have gathered to celebrate. President Biden’s mental condition may rather prove Sir Keir’s point, but he cannot say that.

On defence spending, however, Sir Keir should be supported for not automatically promising to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence. He is right that if you measure success by spending X amount of money before working out what you are spending it on, you will waste it. Modest congratulations, therefore, to John Healey, the new Defence Secretary, for flying to Odessa straight after his appointment and offering Ukraine a new, specific extra defence package which included, pleasingly, 50 new ‘military boats’ for river crossings and coastal work. This is small-scale (such boats last only a few weeks in the terrible conditions of the Dnipro), but it will answer short-term needs. It suggests belated official recognition that Ukraine’s need for these boats trumps the danger involved. Unfortunately, Ukraine cannot succeed without fighting dangerously.

Shortly after Mr Healey returned home, Russia bombed Okhmatdyt, Kyiv’s famed children’s cancer hospital. It also bombed a maternity hospital. There is every reason to think both were carefully targeted. Unlike at the beginning of the war, Russian missiles are well guided by Chinese chips. Why, except for sadistic pleasure, aim at children? To break the spirit of Ukrainian mothers. Vladimir Putin’s war is partly demographic, trying to force Ukraine’s next generation out of the country, kidnapping them in the east or driving them to flee in the west. He wants Ukrainians to be so fearful for their children that they desert their country. He aims at the innocent with perfect calculation. It is interesting to compare international coverage of these atrocities with that of events in Gaza. The BBC’s man reported anxiety about ‘hawkish’ Ukrainian reaction. When Israel has hit hospitals in Gaza, it has done so in search of Hamas personnel and installations, usually giving warnings first. Yet whereas Israel is deluged with media outrage and threatened with international criminal law, Russia, which gives no warnings and knows that hospitals in Kyiv camouflage nothing military, keeps going, little molested at the bar of world opinion.

As a righteous prime minister arrives, what should be said of the one who has departed? Rishi Sunak reminds me of Cyril Connolly’s dictum that Alec Douglas-Home, the last Conservative prime minister never to win a general election, was ‘honourably ineligible for the struggle of life’. The phrase is not quite right for Mr Sunak, though. He is the sort of person who is good at almost everything. He does not understand the importance of irrationality, though, and is therefore in the wrong trade.

The idea of planning housing is essentially a socialist one: the government works out housing ‘need’ and allocates houses accordingly. In a free country, this is not necessary. Housing ‘demand’ dictates the price, both up and down. Government and charity can assist the poor but cannot know whether Britain ‘needs’ 1.5 million houses (or whatever) in one parliament. The modern concept of ‘affordable homes’ is strange: any house which someone has bought is, ipso facto, affordable, at least at the time of buying. It is planning, with its restrictions about what can be built where and when, which drives up the price. Since Labour introduced planning under Clement Attlee, its long-term effect has been to restrict house building. This works in favour of them that hath and penalises the young. Labour does not understand this, as can be seen in its promise to improve matters by hiring a further 300 planning officers. Sacking 300 would be much more helpful. However, Rachel Reeves is at least trying to revert to the original aim, which was to build more. She should also follow the Attlee example by encouraging entire new towns. This could promote architectural merit and cohesive infrastructure. The Tories had 14 years to address these problems but they capitulated to the vested interests in their constituency associations. Yet those same vested interests were still dissatisfied and so, in the south, they switched to the Liberal Democrats. Our property-owning democracy now exists only for older generations. The Conservatives will pay for their error for decades to come.

There are so many Turkish barbers in Britain that suspicions have been raised. Some allege that many of their shops are fronts for drug trades and money-laundering. There may be another factor. I recently had my hair cut in a Turkish barber’s shop somewhere in the Home Counties. This included the ritual of having one’s ears singed, which is surprisingly enjoyable. I asked the barber why so many of his countrymen were plying this trade here. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘hardly any of us are Turkish. We are Kurds, fleeing persecution in Turkey. We have to call ourselves Turkish because nobody knows who the Kurds are. Barbers’ shops are our network.’ This is poignant, as if 19th-century Irish labourers in America had been forced to call themselves English to prosper.

Sticking doggedly to my theory that there is such a thing as a left-wing face, I ask you to contemplate pictures of the Green co-leader and new MP for Bristol Central, Carla Denyer.