Good on Darren!
06.03.2026 11:54
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Good on Darren!
There’s another blog in me that might build on the opening paragraph of this one. A Gen X pal told me a few years back if he had a moustache and mullet like I did, back in the late 80s in New Cross, he would’ve been beaten up. He was envious of my freedom to dress how I wanted to as a young man.
New blog from me where I share my lived experience of getting harassed, mocked and bantered with on the street….
And I talk about the social tribes who most commonly do this to me. It is the white working class and lower middle class.
open.substack.com/pub/thehotta...
There’s another adjacent story here about how casual violence has diminished in Britain. 30 years ago, people like me were physically beaten, 15 years ago we were called poofs, nowadays we’re called ugly c**ts. Progress!
There’s another blog in me that might build on the opening paragraph of this one. A Gen X pal told me a few years back if he had a moustache and mullet like I did, back in the late 80s in New Cross, he would’ve been beaten up. He was envious of my freedom to dress how I wanted to as a young man.
New blog from me where I share my lived experience of getting harassed, mocked and bantered with on the street….
And I talk about the social tribes who most commonly do this to me. It is the white working class and lower middle class.
open.substack.com/pub/thehotta...
This is actually superb
The best bit is that the secret fourth thing is older than all the others by quite some margin and will inevitably outlive all of us.
TBH I was getting lost at 1500 and everything earlier was just a nope from me
side note but £1700pcm for a one bedroom flat in Colliers Wood, a not especially glamorous neighbourhood in quite deep zone 3, is fucking bananas, London renting has just gone fully insane
I promise you putting in prohibitive standards that mean gp surgeries can only be in purpose built buildings so there are an insufficient number of gp surgeries in total will not fix the problems for people who need accessibility.
Also, a 6% fall in rent in aggregate is not small. That’s billions and billions of value transferred from home owners to renters and new buyers! Sure we need to go a lot further but people are in denial about how many homes are needed. Uk is 4-7m short.
The key part is building more homes. The aggregate effect on housing demand is pretty similar, but council housing concentrates the subsidy in lower income households while market rate housing spreads it all the way up and down the chain.
You might hate the trickle down logic but study after study has shown it to be true. A lack of market sale housing prevents wealthy people moving into more expensive homes, blocking less affluent people from moving, and so on.
data.london.gov.uk/download/2w1...
Paul is correct and there’s lots of evidence that this "trick down logic" in fact is exactly what happens.
"The Green Party has a habit of supporting things in principle and opposing them in practice. It wants environmentally friendly transport, then opposes HS2. It wants clean energy, but opposes wind farms locally. It supports affordable housing, but opposes almost every building project it sees."
I think there are some pretty legitimate questions for the Greens to answer in this short thread – entirely possible they didn't know the history here, but if so they should say that and distance themselves.
New post out:
We have a guest post today from the excellent @dsquareddigest.bsky.social.
"Build the Rail! Save the snails!"
Or how we don't need to sacrifice the environment to speed up our mad planning processes.
(Free to read)
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/b...
K is a lucky lady. Took her out for a few drinks later
The Labour leader of Basildon Council making me side with Mark Francois here. FFS.
Happy Valentine’s Day
Hello Elle!
What’s your thoughts here? I always assumed every party leaflet was tossed in the bin!
I am *amazed* that this isn’t a bigger political issue.
It literally remains the biggest issue to vast numbers of voters, ahead of even the economy and NHS. Economy, NHS, immigration (‘immigration’ = voters thinking immigration is far too high, despite them consistently underestimating the real numbers) have been the big 3 issue for voters, for 20 years.
Voters have been utterly outraged by immigration levels for about 2/3rds of my life, and the failure of politicians to act on their wishes led to Brexit, and is now a major reason behind why Reform are heading for government.
To think being tough on immigration was a 2025 fleeting vibes thing?
If Starmer changes tack or is replaced by someone to his “left”, the main shift will be tonal because the government has just been quite left wing. It put up taxes, spent more on public services and gave unions a load more powers
“Wes Streeting: consistently pro-Palestine”, an entirely true statement believed only by six people, three of whom are pro-Israel MPs on the right of the Labour party who will therefore not nominate him.
Here is Stephen's piece
bsky.app/profile/step...
I also cite @duncanrobinson.bsky.social Bagehot's excellent recent column on the cost of the Cost of Living Obsession
www.economist.com/britain/2026...
I irony that is that your average reform voter is probably more liberal than a very large section of Labour’s (and increasingly the Green’s) base. There was some polling that showed it was Labour voters who were most likely to be disappointed if their child was gay, for example.