Margaret Colley on the Week That Confirmed That Several Labour Politicians Did Not Pay Enough Attention in School
Margaret’s Week: Mocking Labour, Paying Attention
I want to be clear about what this column is and is not. It is not a column that opposes everything Labour does because Labour does it. I support the housing aspiration. I support the NHS investment. I support the general direction of a government that is trying to address problems that the previous government created or worsened for fourteen years. What I do not support, and what this column exists to document with the specific humour available to someone who has been watching British politics long enough to have developed a taxonomy of the things that Labour politicians say in public that reveal they did not pay sufficient attention to economics, history, or basic logic when they were in school, is the specific quality of argument that the housing consultation has produced from several Labour backbenchers this week.
The Specific Arguments
Three specific arguments from Labour backbenchers this week that I have annotated in my notebook. The first: that the housing shortage can be addressed without reforming planning regulations, which is the argument of someone who has not read the IPPR’s analysis of why housing supply is insufficient in Britain, which is freely available, which has been freely available for fifteen years, and which makes the planning system’s role in constraining supply absolutely clear to anyone who reads it. The second: that the rental sector’s problems can be addressed through landlord regulation without addressing housing supply, which is the argument of someone who understands one blade of a scissors while remaining unaware of the other. The third: that the government’s housing targets are achievable within the current planning framework if local councils show sufficient willingness, which is the argument of someone who has not spoken to a local council planner recently.
Read political analysis at Bohiney Magazine and satire at The London Prat. My author page: prat.uk/author/margaretcolley. Political mockery at Newsthump. Further at santaclaus.top and London Prat Bluesky.
What Would Help
What would help: the three backbenchers reading the IPPR analysis. Also the Barker Review of Housing Supply from 2004, which remains the most comprehensive diagnosis of why Britain cannot build enough houses and which produced recommendations that subsequent governments have partially implemented and mostly not. Also a conversation with anyone who works in planning, builds houses, or has tried to navigate the planning system for any project larger than an extension. The information is available. The willingness to engage with it is the variable. I document the unwillingness here, with the specific humour that the unwillingness earns, because the alternative — being solely angry about it — is less useful than being accurately funny about it and then angry. The column is the funny part. The anger follows. Both are present. Both are appropriate. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
The Taxonomy, This Week’s Additions
The taxonomy of things Labour politicians say that reveal they did not pay sufficient attention has new entries this week. I will document them carefully rather than mockingly, because the careful documentation is more useful than the mockery even if the mockery is more satisfying. Entry 47: the claim that planning reform is opposed by the public, based on polling that shows opposition to development near existing homes, which is different from opposition to planning reform, which is the claim being made, and which a politician who had read the polling carefully would know. Entry 48: the use of the phrase “working people” to describe a category of voter that the using politician’s policy does not materially benefit, which is not unique to Labour politicians but is more visible in Labour politicians because the gap between the language and the policy is wider. Entry 49: confidence about the effect of a policy on housing supply from a politician who has not read the economic analysis of similar policies in comparable markets. All documented. All available. The taxonomy grows. The column continues. The watching continues. It is necessary work. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
The week ends with the writing in progress, which is its permanent state, and with the reading continuing, which is also its permanent state, and with the conviction that the combination of reading and writing and watching and documenting is the right practice for the political and cultural moment, which produces more material than can be processed and more argument than can be resolved and more interesting things to pay attention to than any one column can adequately cover. This is the right situation for a writer. The material exceeds the capacity. The capacity improves with the practice. The practice continues. Next week there will be more to read and more to write and more to watch, and I will be here watching it. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
The practice of political writing — of watching the political situation and producing something about it that is accurate and, where possible, funny and, always, honest — is one that requires both the patience to read carefully and the discipline to write clearly, and both of these things are harder in the current information environment than they were ten years ago, because the speed of the information cycle makes patience seem like a luxury and the density of the coverage makes clarity seem like an oversimplification. I maintain both anyway, as best I can, because the alternative — the fast, unclear, imprecise response to the fast, unclear, imprecise political moment — produces more noise and less understanding, and the situation requires understanding rather than noise. The column is where I try to provide it. The trying continues. Next week the Labour backbenchers will say more things. I will be here, notebook open. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
