the spectator | 29 february 2020 | http://www.spectator.co.uk 15ROD LIDDLE
The war the government must win
thoroughly nasty houses and all the clamor-
ous infrastructure that accompanies them.
(Bizarrely, those most voluble about climate
change are also those who support tarmack-
ing the green belt and thus supporting all
those extra emissions from the new homes.)
Before despoiling our crowded island fur-
ther, why not look outside the box a little?
Our supposed need for new housing is
based upon the flawed ‘predict and provide’
model, drawn from the expected population
increase. The birth rate among indigenous
Brits is pretty low. The organisation Migra-
tion Watch estimates that inward immigra-
tion is responsible for up to 45 per cent of
‘household demand’ — cut immigration
and you therefore have an immediate effectupon this supposed need for new housing
both now and in the future. Further, the
real housing crisis we have — that homes
are far too expensive — has been exacer-
bated by the unprecedented influx of peo-
ple from abroad. The increased demand for
housing has raised property prices by a good
10 per cent.
And yet when these points are made,
there is a howl-round of outrage and self-
righteousness. How dare you blame immi-
grants for our housing crisis! It’s Tory cuts
and the privatisation of social housing and
a refusal to build! Well, nobody is blaming
the immigrants themselves, any more than
they are blamed for exerting a depreciatory
effect upon the wages of the very poorest
paid. But they are still both a consequenceof a net influx of immigration. If an extra
250,000 people arrive here every year, they
will need somewhere to live, no? Denial of
that patent fact is one of the more entertain-
ing examples of liberal double think.
The puzzle remains, though. If our
birth rate is stable (immigrant birth
rates excepted), how come most of our
new housing need is the consequence
of indigenous Brits? Again, this is a question
the liberals find difficult to address. Almost
all of the reasons are the consequence
of progressive legislation of one kind or
another. Easier divorce, the breakdown of
both the nuclear family and the extended
family and its replacement by fissiparous
single parenthood. A diminishing of com-
munitarianism and a concomitant wish
on our behalves to live separately, apart
from others.
By the same token we might also blame
neoliberal economic polices — an obsession
with the vaulting wealth that can be generat-
ed by home-ownership and which has led to
houses being seen as simply collateral, ever
to be traded up, rather than as places to live
in and put down one’s roots. To which we
might add the horror of unrealistic expecta-
tion: with 50 per cent of young people now
attending university, rather than 10 per cent
(which was about right), we have graduates
emerging from their colleges with a 2:2 in
Gender Studies, appalled and astonished
that they cannot find a nice flat to buy in
Islington on their wages from Poundland. I
had this very discussion with a young chap
on a train recently: he was furious at my gen-
eration for depriving him of the right to buy
an apartment in London. He was 23. I’m
so sorry, I said, where would you like your
apartment to be? Belgravia? Docklands?
Hoxton? I was 30 before I got my studio flat
in Peckham. Until then I camped out in low-
grade squats and housing association prop-
erties, devoid of a sense of entitlement.
So: bullying, immigration and housing.
If you have been affected by any of the
issues raised in this column please ring our
help line where a counsellor will tell you to
man up and grow a pair.SPECTATOR.CO.UK/RODLIDDLE
The argument continues online.W
e will rue the day we all decided
bullying was a bad thing. The
consequence is that the inept, the
imbecilic and the perpetually frit will hang
on to their jobs and we will become a much
less efficient country. By bullying I do not
mean physically beating someone up and
stealing their lunch money, which is what it
used to mean when it had a proper meaning.
I mean telling someone they’re useless and
deserve to be sacked, which is what bullying
means today. As R.D. Laing might have put
it, that kind of bullying is a rational response
to irrationality. The Home Secretary, Priti
Patel, who is 5ft 6in tall, has been accused
of using bullying behaviour with regard to
her civil servants. Nowhere near enough
bullying behaviour in my book. One ima-
gines the chagrin amid the Sir Humphreys:
‘I have just been told what to do by a short,
state-educated woman from the colonies!’
The fury and loathing turned upon Patel is
a foretaste of what awaits government min-
isters (and advisers) when they dare to tell
the civil servants that perhaps things might
be done differently from here on in. It is a
preliminary skirmish in a war the govern-
ment must win.
The bitter — and I suspect a little racist
and sexist — backlash against Patel came
after she had unveiled the government’s
new proposals to reduce immigration, some-
thing the average voter has been banging on
about for 20 years since the doors were flung
open — out of political spite and political
expediency — by New Labour. Since then
we have admitted a net amount of peo-
ple to this country equivalent to a city the
size of Exeter (250,000 people) every year.
I — and most voters, according to the polls
— would have preferred the net gain, if we
had to have a net gain, to have been closer
in size to that of the village of Chop Gate
in North Yorkshire, pop. about nine. Patel’s
proposals are the first serious attempt in
all that time to halt the flow, for which she
deserves great credit.
Who knows if it will work? If it does,
Patel will have hugely alleviated that other
great problem of our age, the housing crisis. I
seem to be almost alone in the country in not
wishing the government to pave over every
inch of our landscape in order to shove upPriti Patel has been accused of using
bullying behaviour. Nowhere near
enough bullying behaviour in my book‘And let’s all try to be a little bit kinder.’Rod Liddle_29 Feb 2020_The Spectator 15 26/02/2020 12: