Good news!
Growth in GDP is 0.8%, or TWICE what the economists expected.
This has of course been greeted from the Left with loud cheers of: "well it's lower than it was last quarter" and "it's just momentum from the Labour government" and "the cuts haven't started yet"!
Yes, see how this goes.
Mr David Outlaws says he's proud of the pupil premium… and the left say "if they weren't spending more it would be a cut!"
Mr Vince announces a fair and generous pension for all… and the left say "it's unaffordable" and "too good to be true"!
Honestly, I think that the Coalition could offer you gold bricks and chocolate and the left would still say we were really in league with the NAZIS.
Meanwhile, Ms Polly Toytown has called the government's housing policy a "final solution" and Mr Chris Bryant has referred to it as "ethnic cleansing".
[elephant holds head in fluffy feet; checks Godwin's Law]
IF you want to have a proper debate about HOUSING, you need to understand how just paying loads of housing benefit to landlords, and not building new social housing to replace the ones you were flogging off, helped to fuel that enormous house price bubble that Mr Frown conspicuously did nothing about and allowed to explode the economy.
CLEARLY, the Government believes in a (Conservatory) Market-led approach, where cutting the amount of housing benefit will reduce demand and cause rents to fall.
I am CONCERNED that that is too BRUTAL an approach: I fear that people will be more likely to lose their homes than successfully negotiate a lower rent.
What this needs is alternative proposals: a method to CONTROL rents DOWN that will encourage a dialogue between landlord and tenant and will achieve a FAIR and AFFORDABLE rent.
Instead we get "final solution" and "ethnic cleansing".
So…
Dear "the Left",
Please tell us when you want to come in from playing in the mud and we will have a proper conversation then, thanks.
ALSO:
This is my TWELVE-HUNDREDTH Diary, brought to you by the miracle of a Happy Anniversary for my Daddy Alex and coincidentally also my Daddy Richard!
