No.164 - The Bottom Line and the Great Sleaze

Dear James,

Three weeks ago, Babergh District Council agreed to the building of 64 houses on prime agricultural land in Boxford. At the first meeting in 2019, up to 160 villagers had objected to the plan and many of them had attended the planning meeting in person. So the first time round the plan was refused. The more recent meeting was virtual (on Zoom) and the planning committee seemed removed, confused and at odds with the feelings of the local people of Boxford. To the horror of most of those people, the original decision was overturned and their beautiful village will now become a small town rather than a large village. Catesby, the Developer, has deep pockets and it seems that money, big money, forced Babergh, who are short of cash, into submission. The voices of the local people were nothing. The future is clear. Money rules. Local democracy is dead.

Last week the government, following Boris’s promise to bring a ‘wrecking ball’ to our planning system, announced its ‘once in a lifetime’ building plans to slash red tape in the planning process. They tell us that ‘local people’ will be able to decide whether land in their areas should become areas of growth, renewal or protection. Robert Jenrick, he of the recent London scandal of nodding through a Richard Desmond scam to avoid paying £40m ‘social charge’ on his development, claimed the new system as a reform to sweep away an outdated planning system and boost building. The criticism from housing charities, planning officers and architects was immediate and stunning. They warned of a new generation of fast and substandard housing. TCPA, the Town and Country Planning Association, condemned the plans as disruptive and rushed. Labour called it “a developers’ charter” that will “set fire to important safeguards”. The post-Brexit, ‘Americanization’ of the British economy is proceeding apace.

If money rules, everything else becomes subservient to the bottom line. Politics, principle and the rule of law itself become slaves to its demands. Currently your government doles out lucrative contracts to its supporters, helps billionaire property developers cut costs, and dishes out 36 lifetime seats in the already bloated and irrelevant House of Lords. Cronyism is the name of the game based upon the arrogance of those who believe they are untouchable. But it is not just that money rules. A big part of the cash is Russian money, or to put it another way, dirty money. Your Tory government is up to its neck in sleaze James and once that happens that essential ingredient of our democracy, mutual trust is destroyed.

Take for instance climate change, the biggest long-term threat to our civilization. Persimmon Homes are currently building 170 houses in Hadleigh, in your own constituency, of which very few, if any, will have solar panels on their roofs. To put 14 solar panels on that number of houses on an estate would probably cost a maximum of £2000 per house. If the selling price of the houses is on average say, £300,000, solar panels would add 0.67% to Persimmon’s costs. But the maximization of shareholder value through the minimization of costs is what matters to Boris’s government. Because again they know that the Party will be rewarded by further donations to your coffers. You gain, the climate loses.  

But when it comes to the taxpayer’s bottom line everything changes. This week it was revealed that at least £156m was wasted by the government on 50 million face masks deemed unsuitable for the NHS. They had been bought through a company called Prospermill with a share capital of just £100 and with no track record of producing personal protective equipment – or anything else. But the company, was co-owned by Andrew Mills, a staunch Brexiteer and cheerleader for international trade secretary, Liz Truss. Need I say more? 

These are dark days for our nation James. Mutual trust is what allows us to tolerate governments we do not like because we are protected by the rule of law and its associated institutions. Little by little that trust is being eroded by a government totally unrepresentative of the UK population. Your leader was selected by a tiny few out of touch leaders of the Tory shires and is dependent on a small group of donors, Russian oligarchs, large house builders and their like, guided only by the principle of the bottom line. Our system is broken James but that was always Mr Cummings’s plan wasn’t it? Destroy in order to reform. Unfortunately, his ‘reform’ is a new ‘Wild West’ that will benefit Lord Lebedev and the oligarchs while ignoring the rest of us.

And I’m afraid, you James, are an ‘accessory after that fact’!

Kind regards, 

BH – Your Concerned  Constituent.