Not panicking about Conservative policy
Off with his head
The Prince of Wales and deputy prime minister John Prescott. Not the most likely brothers in arms, you might think. However, speaking at a conference on traditional urbanism last week, they shared more than the conference platform.

John Prescott provided this deep insight: "We have many things in common – not only the fact that we're both deputies." Aware that he had pushed his luck a bit, Prescott attempted to take his foot out of his mouth, muttering: "Yes, I do know where the tower is …"

When gherkins attack
At the same event the Prince of Wales revisited a favourite theme: contemporary architecture. He's been rather quiet on the subject of late – compared at least with previous occasions, like the time he described plans for an extension to the National Gallery as a "carbuncle".

But, apparently buoyed by recent interest in his Poundbury village, he got stuck in again. "London seems to be looking like some kind of absurdist's picnic table," he opined. "Already we have a giant gherkin, and soon, I am told, we will have an enormous salt cellar."

Curry refuses to get hot
The government-appointed homeownership taskforce may have all but endorsed Conservative MP David Davis's plans to extend the right-to-buy to all social housing, but some Torires aren't yet convinced. David Curry, the deputy prime minister's latest shadow,

has had reservations from the start.

So, will he stick with it, despite the evidence that the Tories are on to an electoral winner? Don't get too excited, says Curry: "We really shouldn't panic just because we've come up with a policy that's actually popular."

Scrabble, anyone?
Andrew Malone, chief executive of Nottingham Community Housing Association, took the chance to relive bygone days at the association's recent 40th birthday bash at the House of Lords.

He recalled a meeting at which Housing Corporation deputy chair Eric Armitage had been present. Malone took great delight in rearranging the letters on Armitage's name card. Demanding to know what was going on, Armitage flipped the card round to be confronted with the words "me a geriatric". Here's to 40 more years of hilarity.

All news is bad news
Maeve Sherlock has been chief executive of the Refugee Council for just three months, and has already discovered the worst aspect of her job, courtesy of the Daily Express, Sun et al. "Every morning, I read my press cuttings," she says. "I know a lot of people have to do that, but in my job the cuttings are worse than anybody else's cuttings in the history of the world."

The new press gang

Can’t find a builder? Go to the pub. Or at least, that seems to be the message from the Construction Industry Training Board, which has decided to advertise on beer mats in a bid to attract young (and, one assumes, possibly drunk) people into the building trade.

Source

Housing Today