/ June 23, 2017 at 3:22 PM
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I have found it hard to comment on the Grenfell Tower disaster. Words cannot convey the horror of it, and everything I tried to write felt hopelessly inadequate. Others succeeded where I failed, and I would recommend thoughtful pieces penned…
/ June 13, 2017 at 6:26 AM
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Below is my piece for the Guardian Housing Network yesterday. A new Housing Minister is yet to be appointed and we have to wait and see if the negotiations between the Tories and the DUP have any implications for housing…
/ June 6, 2017 at 4:16 PM
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There may be good reasons – in particular murder and mayhem on our streets – but another Election has passed in which housing has been the dog that didn’t bark. Sadly too late to have the impact it deserves in…
/ November 25, 2016 at 10:45 AM
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It is hard to imagine a housebuilding policy that could be more extreme than the position reached by David Cameron and George Osborne last year. Having virtually ended new programmes of social rented homes, in favour of the so-called ‘affordable…
/ November 21, 2016 at 11:44 AM
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The latest housebuilding figures, and especially the disastrously low figures for affordable homes and the virtual disappearance of new homes for social rent, have refocused attention on housebuilding. In the run up to the Autumn Statement there has been some…
/ November 18, 2016 at 9:06 AM
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BY Dermot Mckibbin, Beckenham CLP* This review was commissioned by the John Healey MP Shadow Secretary of State for Housing though is independent of the Labour Party. Peter Redfern, the Chief Executive for Taylor Wimpey chaired the review. (click here…
/ October 25, 2016 at 11:55 AM
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Dave Hill is an award-winning (and deservedly so) commentator on London and I’ve never had much cause to take issue with him. But on the issue of regeneration/gentrification (they are not the same but let that pass for now) he…
/ October 18, 2016 at 10:20 AM
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Back in 2012 Red Brick dubbed the Government’s ‘Troubled Families’ programme ‘policy-based evidence making’. The newly-released (and sneaked out) evaluation of the billion pound programme proves our point. Despite constant claims by Government that the programme was ‘turning round’ the…
/ September 27, 2016 at 11:29 AM
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See the complete shortlist here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/turner-prize-2016-review-tate-britain-micheal-dean-anthea-hamilton-helen-marten-josephine-pryde#img-4
/ September 20, 2016 at 10:18 PM
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With poor timing I suspect I’m about to get on the wrong side of history with this post, coming just a few days before the Leadership ballot result. But here goes anyway. I’m in Labour because I believe that the…
/ July 18, 2016 at 8:16 AM
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You need all your fingers and toes to count the number of Ministers of Housing we have had in the last 30 years. The short term nature of occupancy of the job is one of the reasons we have had…
/ May 31, 2016 at 9:27 AM
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At the recent annual general meeting of the Labour Housing Group, addressed by Shadow Housing Minister John Healey MP, there was a general air of disbelief that housing policy could have become so perverted that the most extraordinarily damaging legislation…
/ May 17, 2016 at 9:18 AM
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There are few things that irritate me more (although Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith irritate me the most) than lazy stereotypes about council housing estates and council tenants. Sadly, an article this morning in the Guardian by Rhiannon Lucy…
/ May 3, 2016 at 8:58 AM
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One of the constant refrains on Red Brick over the years has been the need to direct Government funding as far as possible towards increasing housing supply, which will help cool prices. We have argued that it is counterproductive to…
/ April 7, 2016 at 9:56 AM
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Big is beautiful – and more efficient. That’s the mantra that seems to be driving the housing association world at the moment. Egged on by the Government in the shape of the increasingly desperate Housing Minister Brandon Lewis, we have…
/ April 5, 2016 at 10:40 AM
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I rarely disagree with anything that comes from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Their work over the years on housing, regeneration and poverty has been second to none. But this week they surprised me by publishing a ‘Memo for the new…
/ March 25, 2016 at 7:48 AM
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Steve Hilditch reads and enjoys a new book on the private rented sector, but thinks the ‘what should we do about it’? question remains to be answered. What to do about private rents has been a perennial debate over…
/ March 15, 2016 at 3:05 PM
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By Councillor Marc Francis Marc has been one of the Labour councillors for Bow East ward in Tower Hamlets for the past ten years, serving as the borough’s Lead Member for Housing & Development between 2008 and 2010. Three years…
/ March 10, 2016 at 7:35 AM
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Below we are posting the entirety of Sadiq Khan’s Housing Manifesto for the vitally important election of London mayor. It is a hugely progressive step forward from the nighmare of Johnson and contrasts strongly with the policies of the Government…
/ March 9, 2016 at 12:26 PM
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This week’s report by the IPPR Commission on housing in London, chaired by Lord Bob Kerslake, is another worthy contribution to the development of a real strategy capable of tackling the capital’s housing crisis. After treading the familiar territory of…
Chris Hobbs Posted on June 25, 2017 / Politics 801 views
Graham Kirby Posted on June 26, 2017 / Politics 143 views
Guerilla Wire Posted on June 28, 2017 / Politics 137 views
Guerilla Wire Posted on June 26, 2017 / Politics 123 views
Pamplemousse Posted on June 27, 2017 / Politics 113 views
