As I Was Going To St Ives, I Met A Man With Seven Houses

St Ives have voted for…well, it was a while ago now, but something to do with banning new builds being sold to people not from St Ives. So no more new builds for St Ives, which will make their local housing crisis worse.

But this is about the least insane thing that has happened recently, in housing terms. I mean, really, where do you start now on deciding what to write about with regards to the housing market?

There’s nothing about it that isn’t completely f***ing batsh*t crazy.

Following the government’s proposal to build a million new houses, new house building has completely collapsed. Like, totally (dude).

Social housing is slowly being completely eliminated by the recent Housing Act and replaced with Starter Homes, which are themselves, as a policy, Alice in Wonderland-level insane.

Pick any bit of legislation regarding housing, at random, and it will be nuts: take, I dunno……..references to housing in the Immigration Act 2014 and the new Right to Rent madness.

Section 21(3) “P is to be treated as having a right to rent in relation to premises (in spite of subsection (2)) if the Secretary of State has granted P permission for the purposes of this Chapter to occupy premises under a residential tenancy agreement”

Now, there is no way in which someone can apply for permission to rent, but permission might be granted by the Secretary of State off their own bat, in certain enigmatic circumstances. So, some people who do not have the right to rent might be granted permission to rent. But they cannot apply for such permission.

Impressive.

Lucky everyone’s distracted by the EU referendum, hey?

I’m actually undecided as to whether we should leave: no one has convinced me that the democratic deficit in the EU can be overcome - or is even planned to be overcome. This trumps most things for me, but I like the idea of peace and love that the EU promises, and I have always wanted to one day claim benefits on the French taxpayer in Gaudeloupe in the Lesser Antillles, and leaving the EU would jeopardise this plan (it’s in the Caribbean, but technically part of the EU you know. I know! Right? Who’s with me on this one…).

Both sides are bananas: some of the people in favour of Leave are starting to become a teensy weensy bit massively racist, but someone from Remain told me recently that parliament is sovereign because even though it’s not, it could be if it wanted to be as we could vote to leave the EU. Presumably, we’re also a republic because, even though we have a Queen, we could vote to get rid of her, ergo we are a Republic. And also, I’m thin! Even though I’m overweight, I could be thin if I lost weight. So I must be thin! Hurrah!

But then, I doubt we’ll leave the EU even if we vote to. I reckon Cameron won’t push the legislation through parliament immediately, he’ll wait two years – by which time he will have negotiated such a disastrous deal, the economy will collapse (it will anyway, it’s just a matter of timing – best to let it happen when you have an excuse) and the original referendum result will be declared null and void, and the EU super state will role on.

Still, Guadeloupe looks great.