The housing revolution will be much easier if voters accept it has to happen – even on their doorstep
'Nimby' homeowners and Tory MPs in leafy shires have always thrown up a wall of resistance
WHAT a game-changer it would be for Britain’s housing crisis if the country was fully behind the Tories’ radical plans to fix it.
It might surprise the Government just how many people already are.
“Nimby” homeowners and Tory MPs in leafy shires have always thrown up a wall of resistance to houses being built near theirs or on Green Belt land.
But a major survey this week claimed that negativity has crumbled since 2010.
The pressure of our soaring population is far more obvious now, with prices rocketing beyond a generation’s reach.
Property ownership must not become a luxury from the past. Getting hundreds of thousands of affordable homes built is one of this Government’s most crucial and trickiest challenges.
The housing revolution will be much easier if voters accept it has to get done — even if it happens on their doorstep.
Abuse of power
THE huge nPower price hike is a blatant V-sign to customers, politicians and the energy industry’s watchdog.
It’s surely the last straw for a Government that must now rein in the Big Six.
Ofgem had already warned them to keep prices down.
Only this week, nPower admitted to MPs it subsidises its cheapest deals by routinely ripping off those on standard tariffs. The industry plainly believes they’re mugs — and nPower is now stinging them for another 10 per cent.
Many can’t switch to a lower tariff, or don’t know they can. They shouldn’t be systematically fleeced.
Energy Secretary Greg Clark must compel these firms to shift all customers to cheaper rates.
He has been too slow grasping the nettle.
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Rights wrong
WHY is a robber’s privacy more important than the security of the shops and staff he steals from?
It is shocking that data protection law prevents the sharing of images of known thieves among retailers.
Most try their luck in one store after another. Alerting other shops, with images, is the best way to stop them.
Yet Iceland say it was warned off by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Only the maddest law would stand in the way of preventing crime.
EU pipsqueak
WE have no qualms about Theresa May making an immediate ally of Donald Trump.
And our confidence has never been higher than after her slap-down over it from Francois Hollande during the EU’s cold-shouldering of our PM in Malta.
The socialist buffoon is now the most loathed president in French history.
Britain must listen to his advice — and resolve, as ever, to do exactly the opposite.