All rivers in England have failed to meet quality tests for pollution amid concerns over the scale of sewage discharge and agricultural chemicals entering the water system.

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com 

Data reveals just 14% of good ecological standard and none of good chemical standard

All rivers in England have failed to meet quality tests for pollution amid concerns over the scale of sewage discharge and agricultural chemicals entering the water system.

Data published on Thursday reveals just 14% of English rivers are of “good” ecological standard. There has been no improvements in river quality since 2016 when the last data was published, despite government promises that by 2027, 75% of English rivers would be rated good.

Figures released by the Environment Agency show for the first time that no river has achieved good chemical status, suggesting pollution from sewage discharge, chemicals and agriculture are having a huge impact on river quality. In 2016, 97% of rivers were judged to have good chemical status, though the standard of tests used this time was tougher.

EA chief, Emma Howard Boyd, said: “Water quality has plateaued since 2016, which isn’t good enough. There have been improvements over the last 25 years, for example waste water treatment works put 60% less phosphate and 70% less ammonia into the water environment than they did in 1995, but the general upward trend has not continued.“

Despite the government’s legally binding target, the new data suggests rivers are as in as poor a state as six years ago.

Howard Boyd said: “Today just 14% of our rivers are [rated good]. To get where we want to be everyone needs to improve how they use water now and that means water companies, farmers and the public.”

Guardian data revealed that raw sewage was discharged from storm overflows into English rivers for more than 1.5m hours by water companies in 2019. And the government and the EA has set up a storm overflow task force to try to tackle the growing problem of sewage pollution.

The environment minister Rebecca Pow said the water quality data published on Thursday showed urgent action was needed to reduce sewage discharge and address pollution from agriculture and chemicals. She said the data was “not comfortable reading”.

“We need to go further and faster on reducing the environmental impact from storm overflows and other sources of pollution including chemicals and agriculture,” said Pow. “More needs to be done urgently, and I met with water companies earlier this month to set out the high expectations this government has for our water environment, including in particular chalk streams.

“These results show we have a long way to go, with a new way of testing for chemicals more accurately reflecting what is in our water environment. While it’s not comfortable reading, this will allow us to plan more effectively to tackle the scourge of pollution.

“We are absolutely committed to achieving the water quality ambitions in our 25-year environment plan to improve at least three-quarters of our waters to be as close to their natural state as soon as possible.”

Dr Janina Gray, the head of science and policy at Salmon and Trout Conservation, said English river quality was the worst in Europe. She blamed a lack of political will, lack of investment and dramatic cuts to Environment Agency monitoring for the “depressing” picture.

“There has been absolutely no progress. Every single water body monitored by the EA in England has failed stricter new chemical standards. This means no waterbodies are in overall good health.”

A Conservative MP has been told to apologise for breaching rules on donations.

Wildlife Trusts says designated new areas of protected land is needed to help nature recover

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com 

New areas of protected “wild belt” land across the English countryside and in towns and cities must be created as part of the government’s planning changes to help nature recover, the Wildlife Trusts has said.

The trusts’ analysis of the planning changes outlined by the government in a white paper suggests they will damage nature, increase air pollution and leave local people with no say on protecting urban wildlife corridors.

The Wildlife Trusts is calling for the inclusion of areas of land to be specifically designated as places for nature recovery. They would be known as “wild belt”, protected from development and managed to allow the recovery of nature.

The trust said wild belt areas were needed in towns, cities and the countryside to ensure that 30% of England was in nature recovery by 2030.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said: “What is critical is making space for nature close to where people live and we need to protect them in the long term to allow nature to recover.

“This wild belt could be a roadside embankment, a river valley or somewhere which is important to local people. So we take a piece of land which is not much good in terms of biodiversity and give it wild belt status and manage it to put nature into recovery.

“This is our only hope. We have to help nature recover rather than just talking about slowing its decline.”

The government changes say local authorities must designate areas for growth, renewal or protection. But Bennett said the government should also map out a network of nature recovery areas in each of these zones to designate as wild belt.

Populations of the UK’s most important species have plummeted by an average of 60% since 1970, according to comprehensive analysis published last year.

This week the RSPB highlighted how too little land was managed for nature in the UK, and said the government had failed to reach 17 out of 20 UN biodiversity targets agreed 10 years ago.

The Wildlife Trusts said the white paper in its current form was a threat to nature. It said it has a bias towards permitting new developments, weakens environmental assessments of land and undermines the democratic process by reducing people’s opportunity to influence planning decisions.

The new zones suggested by the government would do nothing to reverse nature’s decline or integrate it into people’s lives, the analysis said. The trusts are urging members of the public to demand that the government prioritise wildlife and nature recovery in the reforms.

The wild belt designation would mean land that is of low biodiversity value could be designated for the recovery of nature. Bennett said it must reach into every part of England, from rural areas to towns and cities, securing the future of the new land that we are putting into recovery so that we can reach at least 30% of land in recovery by 2030 and address the climate and biodiversity emergency.

Mark Pack President of Lib Dems www.markpack.org.uk

Yesterday, the government wrote to Returning Officers about its plans for the local elections, Mayor elections and Police and Crime Commissioner elections due in May next year in England and Wales.

Key points from the letter are:

• The government’s plans are for the elections to go ahead: “based on the information currently available, polls can be delivered safely and securely, and the risk of transmission substantially reduced, if COVID-19 secure guidelines are followed closely.”
• There are no plans for major changes in how the elections are run: “I believe there is no necessity for significant changes such as imposing an all-postal vote or
  changing polling days or times.”
• Publication of some electoral registers will change: “The UK Government is bringing forward legislation to delay the deadline for publications of this year’s revised  Parliamentary and English local government registers by two months, from 1 December 2020 to 1 February 2021.”
• Unlike Scotland, there are no plans for council by-elections to recommence before May: “Parliament legislated to push back the May 2020 elections and subsequent local by-elections to May 2021, and the UK Government continues to operate on that basis. We are not changing that legislation, meaning that you should not expect any kind of elections to be able to take place before May 2021.”

24 September is the publication date for Sasha’s Swire’s “Secret Diaries” when we get to read her indiscreet descriptions of those Hugo comes into contact with as an MP, rather than extracts.

This quote is attributed to Sarah Vine (aka Mrs Gove):

“And I must confess I rather enjoy her breezy, unself-conscious style: there aren’t many MPs’ wives who would dare describe the party’s foot soldiers as ‘toilet seats’.”

Any local Tory “Foot Soldier” who was “fortunate” enough to have attended a social gathering with the Swires, especially the favoured few who got invited to dine with them, could now feature in the book.

The problem for them is: do they get a “personal” mention, likely to be less than flattering; are they grouped under the blanket description of “Toilet Seats”; or are they simply ignored?

Which is the worst fate?

Obvious candidate names spring to Owl’s mind, including: Paul Diviani, Sarah Randall-Johnson, Christine Channon, Stuart Hughes, Andrew Moulding, Philip Skinner, Alison Hernandez, Jill Elson, John Hart……….(readers can make up their own list).

Former transport secretary Chris Grayling, who once gave a no-deal Brexit ferry contract to a company with no ships, is to be paid £100,000 a year to advise a leading ports company.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Grayling, once dubbed the “worst transport secretary of all time” by Labour, will collect his six-figure salary in return for just seven hours of work per week for Hutchison Ports Europe.

The Tory MP’s appointment as a “strategic adviser” was approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments earlier this month, the latest MPs’ register of interests shows.

Grayling’s time at the Department for Transport left taxpayers with a £100m bill for ferries chartered to bring in vital supplies if there was a no-deal Brexit, but which were never used.

He also faced calls to resign after awarding one of the contracts – worth £13.8m – to run Channel crossings between Belgian port Ostend and Ramsgate in Kent to Seaborne Freight – a company which had no ferries.

But Grayling refused to apologise for the debacle, describing criticism of him as “baffling” and at one point telling the Commons “I did see ships”, in a reversal of Horatio Nelson’s famous quote. 

Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine said: “The now former minister for no ships must wish his list of successes was as long as his list of nicknames.

“With a role like this, the public deserve to know that MPs are on the side of public interest and not the pockets of lobbyists.

“To allow a conflict of interest would be an utter outrage.”

Grayling held on to his job before being eventually sacked by Boris Johnson when he replaced Theresa May as prime minister in 2019.

More recently, Grayling found himself at the centre of another controversy after he failed to be elected chair of the influential Commons intelligence and security committee despite being Johnson’s top pick for the post.

In a major snub, backbencher Julian Lewis was instead picked by the nine-strong committee.

Lewis was later stripped of the Tory whip for upending the prime minister’s plans, while Grayling quit the committee.

Slashed by her poison pen: They’re the wickedest political diaries since Alan Clark’s. Now, in this blistering review, we reveal the full glorious carnage of Sasha Swire’s character assassinations

• Sasha Swire’s upcoming book takes swipes at many high-profile Cabinet figures 
• She also takes aim at the Royal Family and shares controversial anecdotes
• The diarist with the wicked pen is the wife of former Tory minister Sir Hugo Swire

Simon Walters www.dailymail.co.uk 

Barely a single senior member of the governments of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron emerges unscathed in the memoirs of ex-minister’s wife, Sasha Swire. 

The idea of the current Prime Minister with his finger on the nuclear button ‘scares the s***’ out of Lady Swire, wife of former Tory minister Sir Hugo Swire. 

Mr Cameron thinks it is ‘hilarious’ to joke with Lady Swire’s husband about the size of Michael Gove‘s manhood — and the former Prime Minister is drawn to Lady Swire because she is ‘lewd’. 

Meanwhile, Mrs May is Mrs ‘Glumbucket’, the ‘Maybot’, ‘Old Ma May’ or ‘old bat, crippled by her lack of intellectual confidence. 

Nor does Lady Swire, 57, spare the blushes of the Royal Family in her book, Diary Of An MP’s Wife. She says the Queen ‘fixed her beady eyes’ on her at a dinner at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland when Sir Hugo was an Ulster Minister in the Cameron administration. 

Prince Philip ‘ranted’ about how ‘appalled’ he and the Queen were that guests used laptops during Palace ­banquets. And Sir Hugo is distracted at a meeting with Prince Charles by his ‘thick Hanoverian hands’. 

Lady Swire’s reaction to Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle in 2017 is to predict ‘trouble ahead’. The future ­Duchess of Sussex is ‘eating the redhead for breakfast’, she declares; he is ‘clearly not as clever as she is’. 

Lady Swire claims her book is a modern version of the highly acclaimed and outrageous Alan Clark Diaries in the Thatcher era. Like Clark, she gives a riveting insight into the political skulduggery and sexual high jinks of the Tory elite. 

She also pokes affectionate fun at her husband Sir Hugo, or ‘H’, as she refers to him and ­candidly talks of their marriage problems.

The book — the most indiscreet political memoir in decades — claims Boris Johnson was driven by jealousy of Cameron. He saw Cameron as a ‘fee-paying squit’ at Eton in comparison to his own status of King’s Scholar at the school. 

Lady Swire describes Johnson as ‘His Blondness’, adding that he used to be a ‘political calculating machine’ with ‘no political identity or proven ability to grasp difficult questions and decisions’. He had never been loyal to the Tories; his only loyalty was to himself. Many of Johnson’s colleagues did not take him seriously. 

When Philip Hammond was Chancellor in the May government and Boris Johnson asked him for an extra £150million for the NHS, Hammond replied ‘silly boy’, treating him like a ‘stupid child’. 

David Davis, then Brexit Secretary, ‘actually clipped Boris over the back of the head with his hand’ at the same meeting, shocking other ministers. Boris is a ‘big, fat, yellow, bouncy Labrador,’ says Lady Swire. ‘He is curiously vulnerable and longs to be loved and cannot understand it when he is not.’ 

Despite her criticisms of Johnson, by the time he becomes Prime Minister Lady Swire has warmed to him. He is an ‘alley cat’, but one with ‘greatness of soul, generosity of spirit and lack of pettiness,’ a rare quality in politics, she observes. 

Cameron always saw Johnson as a ‘liability’, says Lady Swire — and she does not spare the former PM. 

Many Tory MPs think Cameron would have done much better in the 2010 election, she says, if he ‘hadn’t been such a liberal wimp’. Lady Swire says Cameron’s campaigning style ‘lacked passion’. 

She even challenged him when their two families were holidaying in Cornwall: ‘Are you actually a Conservative, Dave?’ Cameron ‘dives into the surf, furious and flushed, to avoid me’. 

She says Cameron and his inner circle’s ‘obsession’ with promoting ministers with a ‘good back story’ led to big mistakes. 

Sajid Javid was given a Cabinet job ‘because they like the fact that he is a Muslim and his father was a bus driver in Bristol’. 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps — Lady Swire calls him ‘Von Schnapps’ — was seen as ‘ghastly’ by some of Cameron’s team. Justine Greening was ‘loathed’ but had ‘to be kept in the Cabinet because she is a woman’. 

Lady Swire complains bitterly that Sir Hugo was denied a Cabinet job because ‘he is male white and privileged. They simply won’t let it happen’. 

She is no less ruthless in her treatment of Michael Gove. At one point, after a meeting of the National Security Council, Sir Hugo tells her he is ‘starting to think Gove is ever so slightly ­bonkers’. She adds that William Hague looked ‘exasperated every time Gove spoke’. 

Cameron ‘gave Gove a b*****king’ and ‘went ballistic’ when the ­Scotsman publicly attacked the ‘preposterous’ number of Etonians in Cameron’s inner circle. Boris Johnson’s brother, ex-Tory MP Jo, ‘almost burst into tears when he read it’. 

Gove’s aim in saying this was to wreck Boris Johnson’s chances of succeeding Cameron, declares Lady Swire, who adds: Gove is a ‘loose cannon’ and, as an ex-journalist, ‘mistakes headlines for achievements’. 

She describes Gove’s close ally Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s No 10 chief of staff, as ‘one of those odd amoebas you find in jars in school science labs’. Cummings is a ‘stark raving mad Rasputin’. 

Teaming him up with Gove, the ‘most volatile member of the Government, was always an explosion waiting to happen’. Lady Swire accuses Gove of ‘lying through his teeth’ and says that when he fell out with Cameron over Brexit, Cameron was so angry he said he would never have Michael or his wife Sarah Vine — a Mail columnist — or his children in his house ever again. 

She says Gove also upset former Tory leadership contender Rory Stewart, who looked set to ‘punch’ him when Gove made a joke that backfired about a jihadi kissing Stewart’s wife. It was ‘nutter Michael in a nutshell’. 

When Sir Hugo is knighted at Windsor Castle in 2016 he is worried it will be done by Prince Andrew, saying: ‘I’m not kneeling down in front of that man. He might knight me with his todger’

The book is full of shocking sexual shenanigans and pranks. At a birthday party for George Osborne in the Chancellor’s No11 flat, for instance, Lady Swire says Sir Hugo and Cameron were ‘laughing uproariously’ about the size of the private parts of certain Tories, including Gove. 

Gove’s manhood was ‘like a slinky that comes down the stairs before the rest of the body,’ said Sir Hugo. Cameron thought this ‘hilarious’. Sir Hugo started a ‘male conversation’ at the same party ‘about which women in politics are beddable and which aren’t’. 

Lady Swire is unabashed about why David Cameron liked her. It was ‘because I am not remotely nervous around him. I’m cheeky, occasionally lewd and sometimes a little too challenging’. 

During a weekend at Chequers hosted by the Camerons for several ministers and their spouses, Lady Swire says that the dinner conversation covers ‘STDs at Oxford, and my menopausal symptoms and libido’. She tells the gathering she enjoys sex much more in her 50s than in her 40s. 

Her indiscretions even shine a light on Osborne’s marriage break up with wife Frances, which crops up frequently in the diaries. At a 2012 barbecue hosted by Osborne at the Chancellor’s official country residence Dorneywood, Frances stayed in the kitchen for the entire event and ‘did not appear at all’. Lady Swire comments, simply: ‘Extraordinary.’ 

When the couple’s split was announced later, Lady Swire says the ex-Chancellor was ‘having a mini menopause and throwing all his toys out of the pram’. 

She tells how at a birthday party for a Cabinet Minister she embarrassed Lord [Ed] LLewellyn, Cameron’s No 10 chief of staff and now Britain’s Ambassador in Paris. ‘I smile, cup my hand, lower it between his legs, gather up his testicles and squeeze.’ 

When a military clash looms between Russia and America over Syria in 2017, Lady Swire says: ‘Putin and Trump have been getting their d***s out to prove which one is bigger.’ 

She tells how she and Home Secretary Amber Rudd casually discuss whether David Davis is ‘a shagger’. They agree he isn’t. She states in a preface to her book that she had never intended to publish her diaries because it would have been a ‘betrayal’ of her family and friends, adding that some of her entries ‘might offend without meaning to’. 

She changed her mind because ‘it is always men who write history’. 

Plenty of her friends — both male and female — may well not forgive her change of heart. 

Killer political quips 

• George Osborne, former Chancellor: Looked like a ‘­caddish extra on Downton Abbey’. Pasty tax showed he was ‘too clever to be sensible’. 
• Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary: Arrived at a meeting ‘looking like he usually looks, sweaty, just out of the gym and wanting to kill people’.
• Matt Hancock, Health Secretary: ‘Particularly disingenuous. Quite an actor that one.’ 
• Esther McVey, former Work and Pensions Minister: ‘More ladette than lady.’ 
• Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister in Cameron government: ‘Fagin-like, villainous-looking with tight little weasel eyes.’ 
• William Hague former Foreign Secretary: He was ‘foolish’ to issue a statement about the ‘gynaecological secrets’ of wife Ffion in response to unsubstantiated ‘gay rumours’ about him. Hague is ‘only ever interested in himself, his ministers are gnat bites on his ankles, or so he makes them feel’. 
• Oliver Dowden, Culture Secretary: Tells Sir Hugo he was fed up with his wife’s vegan cooking, so was thrilled to find a ham and chicken bake in the oven. He ‘gobbled it down lustily, and when his wife came home she asked where the dog’s food was’. 
• John Bercow, former House of Commons Speaker: He is ‘a little weasel, creepy, revolting, little goblin, gripped by his own smug sanctity, dislikes Hugo’. 
• Donald Trump: ‘A filthy, racist misogynist’. 

A rapier to Royalty

Describing meeting the Queen, Lady Swire said Her Majesty ‘fixes her beady eyes on me then swans past not saying a word’. 

The Queen asks the same question to anyone she doesn’t know, adds Lady Swire — ‘How long have you been doing this?’ 

When they say ­’decades’ or something similar, she says, ‘Gosh’ or ‘Wonderful’ or ‘Have you really?’ 

At a royal dinner, Prince Philip ‘ranted on about some royal banquet where the guests got out their laptops and how appalled he and the Queen were’. 

As for Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie Wessex, Lady Swire is enraged by a ‘fatuous’ comment she made at a royal garden party at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland, where Sasha’s husband was a minister in the Cameron government. 

The Countess delivered a ‘long moan’ about sharing royal duties with her husband and being ‘­frozen out’. 

Prince Edward is described as an ‘overexcitable puppy’. When Sir Hugo is knighted at Windsor Castle in 2016 he is worried it will be done by Prince Andrew, saying: ‘I’m not kneeling down in front of that man. He might knight me with his todger.’ 

Those receiving knighthoods are never told in advance who is going to do the honours, she says, ‘because if it’s Princess Anne everyone complains and tries to switch days’. 

To help businesses in East Devon at this challenging time, East Devon District Council is funding a £40,000 package of business support.

Daniel Wilkins www.sidmouthherald.co.uk

The support programmes, delivered by Honiton-based Cosmic and Business Information Point, will include packages of training, advice and direct consultancy.

This is specific, tailored support for East Devon businesses over and above any other regional support. The programme will offer guidance on how to adapt and thrive at this time.

The programme will be shaped by the businesses that engage and will be wrapped around their requirements, with a flexible offering of training, advice and consultancy, on a broad range of topics.

The Adapt and Thrive programme aims to work with businesses of all shapes and sizes, from the largest businesses to start-ups and established SMEs.

Training and advice could cover aspects such as financial management and business strategies; adapting to change; managing staff culture; agile project management; marketing tactics; or adopting new digital solutions and processes.

Upcoming training sessions can soon be booked by any eligible business based in East Devon.

There will also be a four-part start-up business programme for budding entrepreneurs starting soon.

Councillor Paul Hayward, East Devon District Council’s deputy leader and portfolio holder for economy and assets, said: “At a time when businesses, large and small, are struggling with ever-changing economic uncertainty, and the constantly shifting sands of consumer behaviour, it is essential that commercial organisations adapt to allow them to thrive in a completely different marketplace.

“Communication will be the key, and East Devon District Council is adapting its social media output to ensure that we reach as many businesses as possible to spread the message that we are here to help you – now, and in the future.

“Together, we’ll make East Devon the natural home for small business.”

Anyone interested in registering for support wanting an initial consultation should complete an enquiry form or visit the website for more information

Westcountry MPs have pressed Chancellor Rishi Sunak to recognise the continuing problems of the hospitality sector as furlough comes to an end and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic continues to be felt in the economy.

[Simon Jupp and Neil Parish seem to have kept their heads down – Owl]

Philip Bowern www.devonlive.com 

Central Devon MP and chairman of the Treasury Select Committee Mel Stride asked the Chancellor in a Commons question whether further targeted support was likely to be forthcoming for businesses after the end of October when furlough draws to a close.

Mr Stride said: “(Rishi Sunak) has done a tremendous amount to support jobs in our country.

“But, would he agree with me that there will be many thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of jobs, which are going to be viable after COVID is dealt with but will not make it unless they are provided with further targeted support after the end of October?”

Mr Sunak told Mr Stride: “He is right that businesses do need support which is why many of the interventions we have put in place last through to next year – for example the business rates holidays and indeed our support for the economy and jobs through initiatives like our stamp duty cut to catalyse the housing market.

“Throughout this crisis I’ve not hesitated to act in creative and effective ways to support jobs and employment and will continue to do so.”

Meanwhile, St Austell and Newquay MP Steve Double won a pledge from the Treasury that it would keep under review the idea of running a winter version of the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme.

Mr Double said: “August has been incredibly busy in Cornwall but we do face a big challenge as we head into winter for the hospitality sector.

“So could I ask (Rishi Sunak) if he would consider a similar sort of scheme to be run at some point during the winter to help as many businesses as possible survive the winter and be here for next summer?”

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Jesse Norman replied: “I would say that there is this wider package… of course the Treasury keeps all these measures under review… but it is a pretty formidable combination of VAT reduction, business rates relief and of course billions in tax deferrals and loans.”

We learn from “Sasha’s Secret Diaries” that Hugo was so in with Dave he was the first one Dave called to get drunk with after his defeat.  So pally, yet Hugo couldn’t get him to do anything for East Devon. (Toilet seats too small to bother with?) – Owl

Cameron drowned Brexit sorrows with ‘endless bottles of wine’, book claims

www.independent.co.uk 

David Cameron drowned his sorrows after losing the Brexit referendum with a “lethal” negroni cocktail followed by wine, whisky and a “fat” Cuban cigar during a dinner with friends, a new book claims.

The chastened prime minister bolted from Downing Street to his home in Dean, Oxfordshire, on the day of his defeat, and asked the then Conservative MP Sir Hugo Swire and his wife, Sasha, to come along with “plenty of booze”.

The claims are published in The Times, which is serialising Lady Swire’s tell-all new book, Diary of an MP’s Wife: Inside and Outside Power.

A previous extract claimed that during a long coastal walk Mr Cameron asked Lady Swire to walk behind him, because “that scent you are wearing … makes me want to grab you and push you into the bushes and give you one”.

The latest tranche of diary entries includes 27 June 2016, days after the EU referendum. According to the book, Sir Hugo and Lady Swire arrived at the Cameron home, laden down with alcohol and top-end Cohiba cigars, to discover Samantha Cameron “devastated” by the result.

Lady Swire writes: “When Dave arrives, he makes a lethal negroni before we progress to endless bottles of wine, whisky and brandy.

“Over dinner, he is incandescent with anger, which is almost wholly directed against Michael [Gove].

“As for Boris [Johnson], he says that this whole episode was to do with his leadership ambitions and that he despised his lack of ideology, which is a tad ironic.

“David tells us that even when he switched sides, Boris was telling him via texts that Brexit ‘would be crushed like the toad beneath the harrow’ and that he (David) would survive.”

Mr Cameron’s rage at Mr Gove over his Brexit betrayal was also clear in his own memoir, in which the former PM called his tormentor a “foam-flecked Faragist”. He continued: “One quality shone through: disloyalty. Disloyalty to me and, later, disloyalty to Boris.”

The Independent has contacted Mr Cameron’s office for comment.

[Owl reminds readers that we have already seen Mrs Gove’s (Sarah Vine) Hissy Fit reply to the Diaries]

Erik Ahlsten is unequivocal. “This is the best accommodation I’ve ever had” His friend and neighbour Manfred Bacharach is equally enthusiastic. “I really like this way of living,” he says. “It’s very much my cup of tea.”

Derek Robertson www.theguardian.com 

The two are referring to their new home, Sällbo, a radical experiment in multigenerational living in Helsingborg, a small port city in southern Sweden. Its name is a portmanteau of the Swedish words for companionship (sällskap) and living (bo), and neatly encapsulates the project’s goals – to combat loneliness and promote social cohesion by giving residents incentives, and the spaces, for productive interaction.

Sällbo, which opened last November, consists of 51 apartments spread over four floors of a refurbished retirement home. More than half of the 72 residents are over 70s, like Ahlsten and Bacharach; the rest are aged 18-25. All were selected after an extensive interview process to ensure a mix of personalities, backgrounds, religions, and values, and all had to sign a contract promising to spend at least two hours a week socialising with their neighbours.

“A new way to live,” proclaims Sällbo’s website boldly, adding that it’s where “generations and cultures meet, with social life in the centre”. The project is administered by Helsingsborgshem, a not-for-profit housing company funded by the city council, and stems from an idea they had in 2016 amid concern about loneliness among older groups. Swedes are fiercely independent – young people start living alone earlier than anywhere in Europe – a trait that continues into old age; thanks to public policy and a wide range of municipal services many elderly people opt to remain in their own homes.

Yet a sense of isolation poses a real “danger to health”, according to the Karolinska Institute, and remains prevalent among retirees. “Our research showed that elderly people were feeling isolated from society, and were very lonely in their everyday life,” says Dragana Curovic, the project manager at Sällbo. “They were only mixing with others of the same age.”

At the same time, the 2015 refugee crisis meant organisations like Helsingsborgshem were under pressure to house growing numbers of people who were struggling to integrate with – and win acceptance from – Swedish society. So a plan was hatched to mix the two, with younger Swedish people acting “as a bridge”. “They are closer in age to the refugees, but closer in terms of culture and language to the older people,” says Curovic. “We hoped they would bring them together.”

Although less than a year old, and despite the complications of a pandemic, the arrangement seems to be working for young and old. One resident, a 92-year-old former teacher, has been giving English lessons. Ahlsten and Bacharach have been cooking communal dinners, doing repairs and odd jobs, and driving people around; Bacharach taught one resident, an Afghan refugee, how to drive. In return, the younger residents help with modern technology and social media, and how to find information online.

“It’s a real community,” says Ahlsten, “and the mix of people works very well.” Bacharach agrees. “It’s great doing things together and enjoying other people’s company,” he says. Since moving in, he’s joined the gardening group, the Sunday night movie club, and learned to play Canasta. There are sign-up sheets in the communal areas and dedicated Facebook groups for all the various activities; just as importantly, there’s plenty of space.

There’s a gym, yoga room, a library (stocked with the residents’ own books), and a large communal kitchen on every floor. The arts-and-crafts studio is stuffed with paints, wool, and other creative paraphernalia, while the residents themselves turned one space into a workshop, complete with tools and equipment (one of the pensioners, a former sea captain, has reinvented himself as a silversmith). Even the main lounge on the ground floor is a multifunctional space, with hi-fi equipment, table football, and a piano, donated by one of the residents so that “everyone can experience its joy”; she’s hoping to give lessons.

Rents vary from 4,620 to 5,850 Swedish krona (£409 to £518) per month, which is commensurate with similar-sized rent-controlled apartments in the city (private, one-bedroom rentals in the centre cost between 7,000 and 10,000 Swedish krona).

Ali Soroush, 21, an Afghan refugee, and Isabel Tomak-Eriksson, a native Swede, are one of the few couples. Soroush arrived in 2015 and is one of the refugees Helsingsborgshem had in mind when conceiving of Sällbo. He says it reminds him of his own culture, with people – particularly different generations – living and socialising together, and helping each other out. “The whole building is like a family,” he says.

Of course, intergenerational living carries the risk of some tensions breaking out but, so far, they have been minimal. Helsingsborgshem appointed a full-time “host”, to act as a facilitator and moderator – to “feel the atmosphere and deflate tension” says Curovic – but they’ve had precious little do. Indeed, mutual respect and understanding has flourished; there’s been neither excessive partying, nor any pedantic carping.

“You can always just close your door and relax or sleep,” says Ahlsten. And while Tomak-Eriksson notes the responsibility everyone feels as a Sällbo resident, she says it’s far from boring. “Pre-corona, there were parties all the time. Every weekend it was someone’s birthday or some celebration, and there were always people around – everyone had lots of visitors.”

This planned “togetherness” has also stood the residents in good stead during the pandemic – the threat of the disease has curtailed many of Sällbo’s social aspects, particularly among the elderly. There have been no cases yet, but no one is taking any chances; some are self-quarantining, and those who do continue to meet up do so in smaller groups, and in bigger areas.

“Corona has changed everything, but I’ve been busy,” says Ahlsten, who’s been running errands and doing shopping for those reluctant to venture out into public. Likewise Soroush and Tomak-Eriksson; “We’ve been offering our help to those who need it,” she says. “All the young people have.” And while being vigilant, and following guidelines around distancing and hand hygiene, others are more sanguine. “Not challenging, just boring,” says Bacharach on being asked how he’s coped. “We’re just waiting for it to be over.”

Even before the pandemic, Sällbo had attracted attention both within Sweden and internationally. Three municipalities are working on directly implementing the concept, and many more considering similar ideas. A delegation from Canada visited in February, while others from Italy, Germany, and South Korea have been in touch regarding study missions.

With loneliness on the rise and considered a genuine health risk – Sweden’s largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter asked earlier this year if it was “a new epidemic” – projects such as Sällbo are seen increasingly as a holistic solution to isolation, over-reliance on public services, and the trend, even among older people, for increasingly unhealthy internet use (wifi is free in communal areas, but tenants have to pay extra to get online in their apartments).

“We hope that people see that youngsters from other countries are not to be feared, and that you can have totally normal relationships between youngsters, elderly and other people,” says Curovic of Sällbo’s ultimate goal. “We want that to spread to society in general, and increase the willingness to integrate. And it’s starting to happen.”

Soroush has seen this change first hand. “In my old apartment building, even after one and half years I didn’t know any of my neighbours,” he says. “But here, from day one, you know everyone. It feels like home.”

Rules on Mingling – a simple visual guide – Owl

Peter Brookes Times cartoon: September 16, 2020

Town councillors have continued their objection to plans for a four-storey retirement apartment block in Exmouth.

Daniel Wilkins www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

McCarthy and Stone has lodged an application to build a 59-bedroom extra care accommodation complex on the site next to Tesco in Salterton Road.

If given the go ahead, an office block would also be built on the site which has been earmarked for employment uses in the Exmouth Neighbourhood Plan.

At its virtual meeting on Monday (September 14), the town council’s planning committee voted to continue its previous objection to the plans, saying amendments to the site layout and elevation have not addressed its concerns.

In September 2019, McCarthy and Stone lost an appeal after East Devon District Council refused an application for a 59-bedroom extra care apartment complex.

Town councillors said that 12 months on, not enough has changed and the application would be ‘harmful to the interests of Exmouth’ and is contrary to the town’s neighbourhood plan.

East Devon District Council will make the final decision on the application.

(Last one out please switch off the lights – Owl)

Hannah Corfield honiton.nub.news

Resignations have become a bit of a theme recently at Honiton Town Council, with nine members quitting in 2020 alone.

Michelle Pollington announced yesterday that she would no longer be carrying out her role as councillor for the town, having been co-opted on back in June of last year.

Just seven members now remain on the Council, with one unable to participate due to ill health.

There are five vacancies in each of the two Honiton wards – St Paul’s and St Michael’s. The Monitoring Officer at East Devon District Council has received the required number of written requests, meaning that at least nine of these positions will go to an election due to take place in May 2021.

Michelle told Honiton Nub News: “There is such a small cohort of councillors left that it’s got to a stage where it’s not really functioning as a town council should.

“My intention when I joined was to be part of boosting the reputation of the Council and being part of positive change for the town, but during my time nothing has changed.

“There is a lot of negativity and preoccupation with historic disputes, which gives a bad perception of the town to those looking in.

“We need a fresh start and to move forward.”

The news of former Cllr Pollington’s resignation was announced at the full council meeting held yesterday evening – please see Honiton Nub News Facebook page for a recorded video.

In response, Mayor John Zarczynski commented: “I am sorry to see her go, but it didn’t come as a surprise. I fully expected her to follow when former Cllr Kolek resigned.

“Her short term – because as you know former Cllr Pollington was co-opted – was very much interrupted by the lockdown and I’m sure had it not been for the coronavirus she would have contributed a lot more to the Council.

“I do wish her luck in the future. Whether she will stand in the May elections, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Boris Johnson knows he’s to blame for Britain’s disastrous coronavirus response – it’s time he admitted it. 

www.independent.co.uk 

Covid-19 has so far killed some 60,000 people in Britain. Many should still be alive. Our record is among the worst in the world. Boris Johnson may not be criminally culpable for this national catastrophe, but he is undeniably responsible for the decisions that led to it.

He must know that himself. Why else would he be trying so hard to dodge the blame?

The fate of Public Health England says it all. PHE is accountable to ministers. If they didn’t like its approach, they could have imposed another. They could have given it more money and staff, hollowed out as it was by years of cuts. They could have changed its mandate.

Instead they make it the villain in an alternative reality drama whose heroes – themselves – would be leading us to the Promised Land if only they were not undermined at every turn by obstructive public servants and institutions bent on sabotage. “Following the science” means “blame the boffins”. Anonymous fingers have pointed by turns at civil servants; doctors, nurses and carers; NHS England; local authorities; previous governments; young people; and even Matt Hancock.

With this comes the full repertoire of Trumpian techniques to draw attention away from the government’s mistakes. Statistics manipulated, goalposts moved, dead cats slammed down, fights picked, culture wars unleashed, hapless officials thrown under buses and, yes, lies told, all to sustain the illusion that we are fortunate indeed to be so wisely and decisively led.

But despite early warnings, the prime minister came slowly to the helm. Through March, he flirted with a lethal strategy of herd immunity, abandoned test, trace and isolate (TTI), ruled out quarantine for arrivals from Covid-19 hotspots, and delayed the lockdown: all to the alarm of most independent public health professionals. 

More followed. Abandonment of care homes, and the entire care sector, behind claims about a “protective ring”. Failure to get a grip on shortages of protective clothing amid denials that these were costing lives. When TTI resumed, instead of it being entrusted to experienced local public health teams, it was outsourced to Serco, Sitel, Deloitte and G4S, under a false NHS flag and the leadership of an unqualified and commercially unexceptional, but politically reliable, former telecoms boss. Predictably this has yet to deliver the service we need.

Compounding this has been an approach to communication guaranteed to erode trust and confidence. From the prime minister down, those speaking for the government have been reactive, not proactive, evasive not candid, patronising not sympathetic. They have said one thing one day and another the next. They have offered no plan, only slogans. Averse to listening and consultation, they won’t trust those who must implement their often last-minute pronouncements.

They have shown no empathy with the victims of this pandemic and those most at risk. And when push came to shove with the Cummings Northern Tour, it was “do as we say, not as we do”.

The pandemic has stretched everyone. But the key choices have been political. A prime minister who insists on slavish obedience from his cabinet and total control from No 10 can’t complain when the buck stops with him.

Each blunder was warned against. Each could have been mitigated if not avoided by applying basic public health principles. From South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand to Germany and Ireland, leaders who have combined these principles with honesty and humility have invariably done better.

The public inquiry will, it must be hoped, work forensically through all this. But the prime minister has already kicked it so far ahead as to ensure it can neither confront him in real time with the consequences of his decisions nor help us learn urgent lessons. Meanwhile worse now awaits us as the nights draw in after an eerie summer, perhaps from the virus itself, certainly from its social and economic effects.

We urgently need an autumn reset. We need a government, and a prime minister, running our country not fighting campaigns or chasing headlines. We need them to talk to us with honesty and grace, to win back our trust and to bring us together behind a credible plan.

Scotland rightly aims, with its “zero Covid” strategy, to eliminate community transmission of the virus. That should be the plan in England too. It should have been all along. Only when the daily fear of contagion has gone will people find the confidence to bring our country fully back to life.

The prime minister’s hero, Winston Churchill, wrote: “The use of recriminating about the past is to enforce more effective action at the present.” Boris Johnson must urgently apply this to his own performance. He needs, in short, to take responsibility.

The British people are the real heroes in this drama. They know the prime minister’s job is thankless and he too nearly died. Even now, after all they have endured, they will forgive and move forward if only he can find the courage to own the choices he makes and the consequences for everyone else.

Otherwise, at a price, we will eventually find a way past those consequences. But they will hang like an albatross for evermore around Boris Johnson’s neck.  

John Ashton has been a senior civil servant and diplomat, and latterly a full-time carer. His cousin John Ashton is a former president of the Faculty of Public Health and a regional medical officer. The latter’s book, Blinded by Corona, will be published by Gibson Square on 1 October

“The paperback of Cameron’s memoirs is out this week….

[They] …… are not a great fit for the Personal Growth section of any bookshop – then again, nor is the other opus in which Dave plays a significant role this week. The former prime minister appears extensively in Sasha Swire’s diaries, serialised at length in the Times. Sasha is married to the former MP and minister Hugo Swire, a Cameron-era Tory so obscure I’m amazed even his own wife has heard of him.”

Marina Hyde www.theguardian.com 

What ho, David Cameron! I note the artisan politician has surfaced briefly from his money trench to offer a wan opinion on the government’s plan to break international law. Such is the Cameron Paradox – most of the time I’m thinking: “Where’s David Cameron?! This is all his mess!” But when he materialises, I pivot immediately to: “Oh YOU’VE turned up, have you? Well we ARE honoured…”

On Johnson’s mooted lawbreaking, Cameron helpfully says we’re “in a vital negotiation with the EU to get a deal … and that’s why I have perhaps held back from saying more up to now”. Is it? I doubt it’s why at all. The paperback of Cameron’s memoirs is out this week, so there’s now something in it for him to belatedly join all the other living Tory leaders who’ve expressed much stronger views.

Those memoirs are not a great fit for the Personal Growth section of any bookshop – then again, nor is the other opus in which Dave plays a significant role this week. The former prime minister appears extensively in Sasha Swire’s diaries, serialised at length in the Times. Sasha is married to the former MP and minister Hugo Swire, a Cameron-era Tory so obscure I’m amazed even his own wife has heard of him.

She is, however, the right diarist for the period in question: clique-obsessed, throbbing with misplaced entitlement and declining to learn from any of the events she witnesses. Just as Dave’s innate overconfidence failed to spot that his way of doing business was going to end in cataclysm, so Sasha seems surprised that people are calling her indiscriminate indiscretion “social suicide”.

No one emerges with credit. Swire seems to regard herself as easily as grand as a Mitford, which isn’t the case, while Cameron is the sort of locally sourced wanker who not only knows that lemon juice will spoil mozzarella, but says it out loud at someone else’s house. “At one point, on the coastal path,” Sasha relates of some Cornish holiday hike, “he asks me not to walk in front of him. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Because that scent you are wearing is affecting my pheromones. It makes me want to grab you and push you into the bushes and give you one.’”

If there are any remaining Cameroons out there, they may well regard this as evidence of Dave’s wit and virility. From this end of the telescope, though, all I can make out is a load of rugby-shirted not-quite-theres making dreary vanilla innuendo with one another. The episode takes place shortly after the fall of Tripoli, prompting Cameron to opine: “A great day on the beach … and I’ve just won a war.” Yup, well: SPOILER ALERT.

Everyone seems permanently on the verge of some class-related nervous breakdown. Sasha’s first instinct on visiting George Osborne at the grace-and-favour Dorneywood is to strip it for decorative errors made by the previous tenant, Pauline Prescott, while Michael Gove’s wife – the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine – is cast as a sort of below-stairs Madge Allsop to glamorous SamCam. I see Vine has taken it well, with just the 1,200 words of seething in Monday’s Mail, in which Swire is lambasted for being “amazingly confident in her own opinions”. An opinion columnist takes against the opinionated: very good. Of course, we do have to remember that Vine had frightfully strong views about Ed Miliband’s kitchen, so perhaps all the looking down on people was catching.

The clique are forever noticing the wrong tiles or mild social neediness, but not the freight train coming towards them. If only they’d spent as much time worrying about, say, the country, as they did on all the not-very-niceties. Cameron learned nothing from the divisively bitter and close-run Scottish independence referendum – indeed, he doesn’t seem to have even noticed it was divisive and embittering. Then again, in Swire’s diaries, the mistake of the EU referendum for Cameron would be classed as less significant than using the wrong word for loo or omitting to void oneself in diamonds.

Thereafter, all is not well in the £25,000 shepherd’s hut, where Cameron finds his memoirs a huge Farrow & Ball-ache. “He seems bored by the process,” writes Sasha, “and so is speaking into a microphone, which converts it into text.” Six months later the microphone has farted out a book, and Cameron is raking in so much cash he “has no interest in taking on a big public job like Nato”. Their loss, of course. “As for all the dosh, he says every time he looks for a loophole to stash it away, he realises that George and he closed it, and laughs.”

Cameron was so incapable of seeing life beyond his chumocracy that he made the sensational category mistake of judging the referendum a loyalty test, as opposed to issue-driven. When it all goes tits up, he is “incandescent with anger, which is almost wholly directed against Michael [Gove]”. He can forgive Boris Johnson his narcissistic ambition, but not Gove his principles. Ah well. As Swire non-reflected last weekend: “I just think, fuck it. People come into your life and they go out of it.” Well quite. People, jobs, houses, money, countries – nice not to have to worry too much about any of them.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist.

Plans for a £15-£20bn nuclear power plant in Wales have been scrapped.

[Owl doubts this will be as big a “blow” to the Welsh economy as claimed]

www.bbc.co.uk

Work on the Wylfa Newydd project on Anglesey was suspended in January last year because of rising costs after Hitachi failed to reach a funding agreement with the UK government.

Isle of Anglesey council said the company had now confirmed in writing it is withdrawing from the project.

Council leader Llinos Medi said: “This is very disappointing, particularly at such a difficult time economically.”

Developer Horizon Nuclear, which is owned by Hitachi, said it would not comment.

The UK government also declined to comment.

However Anglesey council said it had received a letter from the Tokyo-based parent company confirming its decision.

Mrs Medi has asked to meet both the Welsh and UK governments to discuss the future of the site.

A two-reactor plant at Wylfa was the biggest energy project ever proposed in Wales.

It was earmarked as having the potential to power up to five million homes, but the project was put on hold as the upfront costs rose.

With 9,000 workers ready to start the construction phase, the decision in January 2019 was described as “a tremendous blow” to the Welsh economy by business leaders.

The company said in June it was hoping to secure extra funding from the UK government to resume the project but has now thrown in the towel.

Analysis by BBC Wales business correspondent Brian Meechan

As one of Wales’ biggest proposed construction projects, Wylfa Newydd has faced turbulent times.

The company behind it, Hitachi, has always been concerned about the costs of building the new nuclear power plant.

The UK government went some way in offering financial support to the project but it wasn’t enough to satisfy Hitachi’s concerns over the financial risks.

The UK government also held a consultation on plans that would see energy customers pay upfront for the costs of construction.

The industry has been waiting for months for an outcome to that.

When the UK government said nuclear was part of its push for green energy, the industry thought it was a positive sign for Wylfa Newydd.

But critics question how green nuclear energy really is, not to mention how safe it is.

Wales has been called the “land of artists’ impressions” with many big schemes that are talked about and never happen.

Supporters of Wylfa Newydd will be concerned it will become another of those, while its critics would be glad to see the back of the plans.

The decision will have “a big effect on the economy”, according to Edward Jones, lecturer in economics at Bangor University.

“We are currently feeling the effect of Covid-19 and Brexit is around the corner, and we will feel the negative impact of that on the economy,” he said.

“A lot of people were investing in learning new skills with the thought of getting jobs at Wylfa.

“We know businesses are investing in new production methods to be part of the supply chain of the nuclear power plant.

“The challenge now is to find other projects that can make use of these skills.”

Mr Jones said other energy projects on the island, such as the Morlais tidal energy scheme, could make use of the investment already made.

Did your MP vote to break international law?

Many senior Tories did not vote, and two Conservative MPs rebelled in the first Commons division on Boris Johnson’s internal market bill, which would give ministers the power to break international law

Seán Clarke www.theguardian.com

Internal market bill, second reading

First vote on the PM’s controversial Brexit bill

Interactive list here

Both Simon Jupp and Neil Parish voted to break the law – Owl

“A coalition of charities, businesses, banks, and think tanks has launched a campaign calling on the government to put building social homes at the heart of its plans for recovery from the coronavirus crisis.”

The mutant housing needs algorithm is going to do nothing to address this problem, it’s just another developers’ charter to build, build, build the wrong sort of houses in the wrong places – Owl

15 September 2020 www.housing.org.uk 

The real ‘social housing waiting list’ in England is 500,000 households bigger than official figures suggest, reveals our new data today.

The findings are published in our annual People in Housing Need report, the most comprehensive report to date on the state of the nation’s housing crisis. It is the only research to analyse the true number of people in need of social housing in England, which has now hit 3.8m. This equates to 1.6m households – 500,000 more than the 1.16m households recorded on official waiting lists.[i]

Due to the severe shortage of social homes, some of these people have been on their council waiting list for almost two decades and may never be housed.[ii]

Already at critical levels, the National Housing Federation is warning that the number of people in need of social housing is set to rise rapidly as a result of the coronavirus pandemic – with low-income earners roughly twice as likely to lose their jobs.[iii] Worse still, those currently in need are likely to be forced further into poverty and debt and as the eviction ban ends, many more will become homeless.

Social rented homes are typically 50% of market rent. They are the most affordable and secure homes for people on low incomes.

Last year only 6,338 new social rented homes were built, a fall of 84% since 2010. New lettings from existing properties also fell by 17% in the same time period and the most expensive areas of the country saw the smallest proportion of new lettings, despite having the highest number of people in need and on waiting lists. [iv]

In the last two years the number of people in need of social housing has increased by 5% and 165,000 people, whilst the number of households has largely remained the same. This suggests that new and growing families are now suffering the worse effects of the housing crisis. The report shows that there are now 3.4m people living in overcrowded homes.

Now in its second year of publication, People in Housing Need reveals the true number of people hit by housing problems, what issues they are facing; such as unaffordability, overcrowding or poor conditions, and what housing would be most appropriate to meet their needs, based on income and circumstances.

Previously, council housing waiting lists were the only way of measuring how many people needed social housing. But these lists, which only record people who apply and meet strict criteria, are a way of prioritising the most vulnerable. They are not intended to be an accurate reflection of everyone in need of an affordable and secure home. Today’s report gives a significantly clearer and more accurate picture of housing need in this country.

The largest number of people on the real ‘social housing waiting list’ are in private rented homes (1.5m), with many having to choose between living in poverty and getting into debt in order to keep a roof over their heads. Others are living in overcrowded, poor quality or unsuitable homes, stuck with friends, family or ex partners because they cannot afford a home of their own, or are homeless. Official figures show that the number of homeless children living in temporary accommodation has risen by 88% since its low point in 2011 to 129,380.[v]

A coalition of charities, businesses, banks, and think tanks has launched a campaign calling on the government to put building social homes at the heart of its plans for recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

The Homes at the Heart campaign is a partnership between Chartered Institute of Housing, Crisis, National Federation of ALMOs, Association of Retained Council Housing and National Housing Federation; along with over 60 supporters from across different sectors – from Carers UK to NatWest.

Last month the HCLG committee inquiry into building more social housing, endorsed the National Housing Federation and Crisis’ recommendation that the government invest £10bn a year in social housing. This would be enough to build 90,000 new social rented homes every year. The report added that this should be a top priority to rebuild the country from the impact of Covid-19.

Kate Henderson, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said: “Today’s report shows that the sharp end of the housing crisis is getting sharper, and at a rapid rate. Under-investment in social housing has left us with virtually no affordable homes available for people on the lowest incomes.

“The real tragedy is that these are same people impacted the most by the coronavirus crisis, which had led to huge job losses for low income workers. When the government’s Job Retention Scheme and ban on evictions end, we are likely to see people in need of social housing skyrocket.

“Everyone deserves a safe, secure and affordable home and social housing provides that vital safety net for low income people including thousands of key workers who have been keeping our country going at this time. We are calling on the government to commit to a once-in-a-generation investment in social housing and put homes at the heart of its plans for economic and social recovery.”

For more information on the Homes at the Heart Campaign visit: https://www.housing.org.uk/HomesAtTheHeart

Tory wife’s diary reveals all about the party

“….the more one reads of the world of Mrs Swire, the more inevitable the subsequent collapse of British politics starts to seem. How were they supposed to end, those years of government by about eight smug, aloof, and slightly aimless people who were only bothering because they didn’t have anything better to do? …..”

[Owl finds the extracts themselves rather boring and repetitive unless you like descriptions of endless dinner parties but the reviews are interesting]

Hugo Rifkind www.thetimes.co.uk 

It’s obviously simplistic to conflate political projects with cliques, but it can be helpful, too. Particularly when you’re trying to figure out why people hate each other so much.

In many respects, for example, the Blair government was best understood as a club of Islington lawyers who had had enough of left-wing politics being dominated by whiffy old men with bundles of pamphlets in plastic bags. And then, later on, the Corbyn movement was dominated by those same whiffy old men, often also from Islington, and often also with the same pamphlets, who were still very cross about it.

Similarly, over on the other side, the Cameron government was a bunch of chummy, middlebrow chaps from glamorous public schools, and the Brexiters who usurped them were a bunch of resentful middlebrow chaps from slightly less glamorous public schools, who the first lot had never once had over for a weekend in the Cotswolds. Caricature? Of course. But not, I think, untrue.

The memoirs of Sasha Swire, serialised in The Times this week, offer the sort of perspective into the Cameron tribe we could only otherwise have got with a periscope punching up through an unspeakably expensive kitchen island. She is the wife of the former Tory Foreign Office minister Sir Hugo Swire, and the daughter of a former Tory defence secretary, and she is tall and blonde and rich and glamorous, and seems to convey the very essence of being a very particular sort of Tory. As in, you know the sort of Tory that Ruth Davidson is? That Theresa May is, and John Major is? Well, not that sort. No.

Like all the best memoirists, Swire seems to understand her own life with the perfect mix of insight and a complete lack of it. For the latter, I offer you the bit in Decca Aitkenhead’s interview in The Sunday Times, where Swire mused that her husband should have been foreign secretary, or at least international development secretary, because he had Etonian charm and “knows all the countries”. What, all of them? Get you, Mr Google.

For the former, though, ponder her epiphany, in yesterday’s extract, at the Cameron’s Notting Hill Christmas party. “Poor old Sarah Gove” is there, apparently doing the catering, and our author has a flash of being “in the court of King David”. It is, she writes, “a very particular, narrow tribe of Britain and their hangers-on” and “enough to repulse the ordinary man”. I’m not sure which ordinary man. Maybe her gardener.

Fifteen years after it began and four years after it so abruptly ended, there remains something enigmatic about the Cameron project. One looks back, still, and one is not quite sure what it was for. Asked why he wanted to be PM, Cameron famously replied “because I think I’d be good at it”. It always reminded me of that Billy Connolly routine, where he meets a well-spoken Englishman who tells him he’s a tobogganist. “A tobacconist?” says Connolly, confused. From the right sort of background, you can have a decent crack at doing almost anything. So why not, thought Dave, do that?

Perhaps that’s why it all never really seemed to matter. Facetiousness can be a pose for the upper classes because earnestness is gauche but the characters we see through Swire don’t even seem to notice that they’re doing it. “What more do I want?” chuckles Cameron, after the fall of Tripoli in 2011. “A great day on the beach . . . and I’ve just won a war.” Contrast this with Blair on Iraq, with the handwringing, and the angst, and the talking to God. Despite all that “heir to Blair” stuff, the two PMs don’t seem to have much in common, either in earnestness or in charisma. This is seen most abruptly when the PM tells Mrs Swire, I suppose in what he imagines to be a charming way, that her perfume makes him want to “push you into the bushes and give you one”.

The clique has codes. A few months after hosting the Camerons in Cornwall, the Swires mention to the Osbornes that they still haven’t been invited to Chequers. Twenty-four hours later an invitation materialises, because while joking about forcibly humping your friend’s wife in the bushes is basically fine, forgetting to return an invitation definitely isn’t. Also, there is the strange, awkward, status of the Goves. Alone among the clique, they are precarious, with lives that would be very different if they weren’t in it. Thus, eventually, they aren’t. In a world where everybody is blithe, their crime seems to be not being. Almost explicitly, in fact, Boris Johnson is forgiven for backing Brexit because he didn’t really believe in it, whereas Michael Gove isn’t, because he did. As Sarah Vine, otherwise known as Mrs Gove, wrote yesterday: “Hugo toyed with the idea of coming out for Brexit, but in the end decided to support Dave instead.” Brexit or Dave: the real referendum choice.

As I said, a clique theory of politics will always be simplistic. Speaking as somebody who was also at a public school, and who is also from a Conservative family and who is, indeed, even also called Hugo, I might also seem to be dancing on a pinhead in separating one bunch of Tories from another.

Still, the more one reads of the world of Mrs Swire, the more inevitable the subsequent collapse of British politics starts to seem. How were they supposed to end, those years of government by about eight smug, aloof, and slightly aimless people who were only bothering because they didn’t have anything better to do? What else could possibly have happened, if not the storming of their expensively tasteful barricades, by all of those colleagues that they relied upon, and looked down upon, and never invited in?