When I asked him just what it was that he found so incredulous, he said:
"Let me read some of it to you - 'Conservatives given millions by property developers'. It goes on to say: 'The Conservative Party has received millions of pounds in donations from developers who stand to benefit from the Government’s controversial planning reforms, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.' The reporter doing the disclosing is Heidi Blake ." Arturo looked at me, waiting for a response. I just shook my head in disbelief!
And this, my friends, is The Daily Telegraph, we are talking about - not a left-leaning paper that would have a vested interest in digging the dirt about the Tories and the Coalition. So good on them!
However, the three foolish monkeys: 'Bagpuss' Pickles, 'Apple Schnapps' Shapps and 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' Clark have kept very quiet about all this free-flowing money. I wonder why!
It seems that, according to Heidi Blake,
Dozens of property firms have given a total of £3.3 million to the party over the past three years, including large gifts from companies seeking to develop rural land.
Now - if we were in certain other countries - no names, no pack-drill - this would not come as a surprise. But in England! And the Tory Party - that boasts several Old Etonians at its head! Well, I ask you! The Eton College motto is 'Esto perpetua' which translated means 'May it last forever' - something that people hoped they could apply to the tranquility of their own landscape!
Of course, those who go to Eton, Harrow, Winchester et al - are likely to have large slices of the English countryside surrounding their own homes - slices that they would refuse to have touched. In fact, they would probably not allow a single blade of grass to be violated - let alone a slice of their land!
Remember 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' Clark fought tooth and nail to protect "our precious green spaces" when a developer had cast his eyes on some prime development land in his constituency - this was before he became a minister! It's amazing how those 'precious' spaces, in other people's backyards, are regarded as ripe for 'sustainable development'.
Seven years ago, Eric 'Bagpuss' Pickles, the Communities Secretary, slammed Labour's efforts to liberalise the planning system. He dreaded seeing "sprawling housing estates dumped by Whitehall on green land". Yet now he is advocating the same thing - and worse - with real Pickles' gusto - and that's some gusto, I can tell you!
Old 'Apple schnapps' Shapps, our gallant housing minister, has also opposed plans for thousands of new houses in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency. Yet now he positively shivers with delight at the prospect of building 42,500 houses every year for the next four years.
Now - I have nothing against houses - got a cosy one here in Downing Street, haven't I? And young people need homes. What I think is wrong is plonking these 42,500 houses willy-nilly on land that local people want to see protected.
Richard Gray in The Daily Telegraph on 28 August wrote:
Figures compiled from the UK's leading house builders have revealed that they have enough land to build 617,724 homes. Less than half of this land has been granted any kind of planning permission.
It follows that these 'leading house builders' already have obtained planning permission for 300,000 houses. Where are they?
Richard Gray went on to write:
Under the Draft National Planning Policy Framework, the current planning rules will be changed so that applications will be treated with a "presumption for consent", meaning applications will be automatically granted if they meet certain criteria.
And that, my friends, is the issue! Houses need to be built for the young to bring up their families. But developers are not charities - far from it - they're in it for the dosh - pure and simple. They'll build where they can be assured of the greatest profit and blow the consequences!
These three abominable foolish monkeys - Pickles, Shapps and Clark - are not the only Tory big-wigs to be enthralled by the prospect of covering England's green and pleasant land with bricks and mortar.
A Tory MP - who did not wish to be named - told The Daily Telegraph reporters Christopher Hope, and Heidi Blake that these planning measures were a "state licence to print money" He went on to say:
"This is a clear example of localism being hijacked and turned into something else. That presumption completely sidelines local authorities, which flies in the face of what localism is all about, but then we know that George Osborne is not a localist."
So - now we have it! Our Georgy from No 11, the second most important person in government is also in it!
The really 'Big Boys' Pickles and Osborne would appear to see the planning reforms as some sort of macho posturing. You just need to see their joint article in The Financial Times on 4 September, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d14169b0-d598-11e0-9133-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1Xa1UxYux
At the end of this article they said:
No-one should underestimate our determination to win this battle.
The property developers who were hoping for more bangs for their bucks, surely, cannot believe their eyes!
Arturo has just fainted! Now there's a cat with impeccable principles!
'Bye'
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