Categories
Blog Post

March of the Meanies

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Steve Hilditch</span></strong>
Steve Hilditch

Founder of Red Brick. Former Head of Policy for Shelter. Select Committee Advisor for Housing and Homelessness. Drafted the first London Mayor’s Housing Strategy under Ken Livingstone. Steve sits on the Editorial Panel of Red Brick.

TWITTER

A Day in the Life of Ministers in and around Communities and Local Government.  On January 3rd, Housing Minister Grant Shapps took action to prevent the demolition of a single house in Liverpool, occupied from the age of 0-4 by one Richard Starkey, later a drummer in a band.  “Let It Be” trumpeted Mr Shapps in the CLG press release.  More like Back in the USSR. 

Meanwhile, just along the corridor, Bungalow Bill* (played by E Pickles) was condemning, in the strongest possible terms, “Whitehall’s addiction to micromanagement” whilst ending requirements limiting car parking spaces in new developments, alongside his friend,  Lovely Rita, meter maid (aka Transport Minister Philip Hammond), who was removing restrictions on councils’ parking charge regimes.  CLG didn’t risk calling the policy Drive My Car.

All I can say is Help.  And Run For Your Life.

*John Lennon said that “‘Bungalow Bill’ was written about a man at the Maharishi’s meditation centre who went off to shoot a few tigers then came back to commune with God.