The German architect and theorist Patrik Schumacher has been dispensing advice to London about how it should manage its housing problems. Speaking in Berlin, he recommends concreting over 80% of Hyde Park, wondering: "how much are you actually using it?"
This "heartless bandit", as Libby Purves calls him in The Times, wants social housing tenants in central areas moved out in favour of "more productive" residents, like his staff. They generate value, he says, and shouldn't have to do long commutes while central areas are left to those who are "free riding". Meanwhile, council housing should be abolished and rich foreigners are great news.
Not surprisingly, the mayor of London was less than thrilled by this. But it's typical of the mind-set of a global elite that thinks "the world is theirs", says Purves the plutocrats who fence off seashores and want the poor kept out of sight. As for the "free riders" Schumacher sneers at: "A lot of those free riders, mate, are people who get up before dawn to clean your vainglorious office buildings, cook your food, clean your streets, serve your ambitious young architects lattes and bagels". Or, for that matter, stand by to rescue them from "fire and terrorand stroke".
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As for Schumacher's "ludicrous defence of the recent pimping-out of London to international money", that stinks too, says Purves. I agree with her, as regular readers of this column will know. No other great city has prostituted itself to the degree London has, so that now, in Purves's words, there are "ghost streets" in elegant areas that hardly show a single light in the evenings, while new-build flats are snapped up by foreign buyers who use London "as a piggy bank to hide and grow their money" more safely than in the homelands which they have, in some cases, "criminally pillaged".
Some of these foreign owners do visit the capital from time to time, of course, perhaps to throw an important party, as Mr Schumacher suggests. Purves's advice: "You great spoilt poseurs, go to a hotel!"
A home for our money
The most quixotic gesture in the chancellor's budget last week was his decision to spend £7.6m of taxpayers' money on restoring Wentworth Woodhouse, England's largest private home. The house is supposed to be the inspiration for Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice, though there's no evidence that Jane Austen actually visited the place.
I've always taken an interest in the house, having known slightly one of its former owners, Wensley Haydon-Baillie. I think it has as many rooms in it as there are days of the year. Mr Hammond's decision to prop it up pleases the Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who before the budget was a noisy critic of the chancellor; it was the ancestral home of his mother-in-law.
"I like the fact that there was only one gimmick [in the budget]," Rees-Mogg told the FT. "The fact that it was Wentworth Woodhouse, I liked more." The house's disrepair stems from the postwar Labour government's decision to allow coal mining in the gardens following the nationalisation of the industry, a decision Rees-Mogg describes as an "outrageous act of socialist envy".
Tabloid money "Why are we always the mugs?"
The suggestion that passport checks should be introduced to curb health tourism seemed eminently sensible to me and my radio show listeners, says Nick Ferrari in the Sunday Express. Then a GP called in and the tone changed. He argued that it would be a "pointless exercise", then another added that "it was not the job of medical staff to act as border guards".
That's all very well. But "last month, the National Audit Office discovered at least £500m was spent on the NHS in providing treatment to foreign patients last year and, of that eye-watering sum, only £255m was recovered. Eight trusts did not collect a single penny from any of the overseas visitors they treated", says Ferrari. "Why are we always the mugs?"
The British government need not worry about keeping our cards close to our chest during Brexit negotiations. The UK holds nearly all the trumps, says Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. "Pessimists search for dark clouds behind the silver lining but nobody can ignore our boom in jobs, growth exports and retail sales since the referendum."
Take Jaguar, which is planning to create 10,000 new jobs and a million new cars a year, or Google, which is investing £1bn. America, Canada, India and Australia are queuing up to sign trade deals. In fact, "China wants to splurge £4bn on a new Canary Wharf", says Kavanagh. "These global giants are choosing to invest their billions here, not France or Italy or even Germany."
"Meet the new, soft focus Mother Theresa," says the Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn, referring to a photo of the prime minister reclining on a burgundy sofa in her flat at Number 10, impeccably dressed in a "cowl-neck" top, costing £495, and £995 "desert boot cut" trousers, both from Amanda Wakeley. "The look she's aiming for is flirty and fun', we are told," says Littlejohn. "Thank goodness for that.
Presumably, if sexy' was what she was after she'd have been photographed in a leather basque, red lacy knickers, suspenders and fishnet stockings, perhaps with a riding crop between her teeth." Still, let's hope she got a discount. "Blowing the thick end of 500 quid on a woolly" and "a grand on trousers is hardly the most sensible way to appeal to the Jams' Mrs May's name for the Just About Managing classes."
