MATT Hancock tried to block 400 new houses and a primary school in his Newmarket backyard by arguing they would harm the horse racing industry.
Priti “local homes for local people” Patel advertises objections to planning applications in her part of Essex.
Gavin Williamson railed against 136 new properties in his patch of Staffordshire, urging villagers to sign a petition against the dwellings.
Grant Shapps, a get-rich-quick merchant who owns a private plane, fought building on a disused airfield in his strip of Hertfordshire.
I could continue with more examples but the Health, Home, Education and Transport Secretaries plus the Cabinet Office Minister sitting at Boris Johnson’s top table make the point.
This is a Block, Block, Block government – not the Build, Build, Build fantasy of the Prime Minister’s fevered imagination.
The Conservatives are the Nimby Party, defenders of the socially unaware possessors, the I’m Alright Jacks and Janes – a political vehicle for haves who hate the have-nots obstructing their views.
Twiddling planning regs is a smokescreen to obscure wider self-interest and a lack of public investment to power Britain to prosperity for all.
The Prime Minister’s purported New Deal, all £5billion falsely hailed as an infrastructure bonanza that turned out to be regurgitated rather than new money, is as all words and no deeds.
Disastrously mishandling coronavirus, a world-beating failure in terms of fatality counts and economic impact, is a symptom of a more fundamental sickness. Suddenly imposing a fortnight’s quarantine on Brits returning from Spanish hols when that country’s safer than here is another breathtaking stumble.
The Transport Secretary must wish he’d taken his own advice and stayed at home as he’ll be locked up for two weeks when he gets back.
Yet the virus hides the gulf in many other areas, between speeches and press releases and reality on the ground.
The economy was struggling before Covid-19, with a target to go into the black instead of borrowing quietly abandoned.
Hospitals, schools, housing, transport, welfare and law and order were battered by the wrecking ball of Tory austerity cuts while Johnson’s Brexit was exposed as a gigantic lie.
Cabinet ministers looking out for themselves, blocking progress, are representatives of a Government that parrots “levelling up” as a propaganda slogan rather than a way of life.
Johnson fooled enough people some of the time and some people enough of the time – but the great hoaxer will be demolished when he no longer fools enough people enough of the time.
