In his own words with John Webster

‘BUILD, BABY, BUILD’.

This irritating slogan, a parody on the lunatic Donald Trumps prayer to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’, has been promoted by Housing Minister Steve Reed.

There is no better indication of the retreat from everything that the Labour Party used to stand for. What it signals is ‘Let the Market rip’...let’s build houses whenever and wherever we can and as a ‘bonus’, in a country that hardly produces anything anymore, this will stimulate the economy!

Hooray! It’s Magic!!!

There is no difference between this approach and that of generations of Tory governments. Tories (including Red neo-liberal Tories like Mr Reed) hate the very notion of planning: it has become a ‘dirty word’. Planning, they say, ‘doesn’t work’.

The point about housing is this. If you don’t plan where it needs t